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UNIVERSITY 

OF  PITTSBURGH 

LIBRARY 

THIS  BOOK  PRESENTED  BY 

Alumni  Giving  Plan 


f 


'^^^^''' 


Miss  Elixabetk  J.  Gveir 
X903  — 1907 


Miss  Maty  L.  DuBois 

190  v  —  130.12. 


FIVE  FORMER  DIRECTORS  OF  THE  BUCKS   COUNTY 
HISTORICAL  SOCIETY. 

John  S.  Williams,  born  March  21,  1831,  served  also  as  vice-president 
from  Jan.  15,  1901,  to  the  date  of  his  death,  Aug.  21.  1920.  He  con- 
tributed one  paper  to  the  society.  Thomas  C.  Knowles,  born  Sep.  7, 
1846,  was  one  of  the  original  directors  when  the  society  was  chartered  in 
1885,  and  served  down  to  date  of  his  death,  Feb.  6,  1921,  the  longest  con- 
tinuous service  of  any  officer  of  the  society.  Thaddeus  S.  Kenderdine, 
born  Dec.  10,  1836,  died  Feb.  17,  1922,  contributed  seven  papers  to  the 
society,  the  last  one  read  by  him  personally  at  the  Cuttalossa  Valley 
meeting,  when  in  the  eighty-second  of  his  age.  He  was  the  author  of 
seven  octavo  books  made  ud  of  his  reminiscences,  travels,  local  history 
and  poetry.  These  books  grace  the  shelves  of  our  librarv.  Miss  Eliza- 
beth J.  Greir,  born  Feb.  16,  1831,  died  April  20,  1907.  In  1903  she  gave 
the  society  its  first  gift  ($2,000)  toward  establishing  a  library  for  the 
society.  Her  brother,  James  H.  Greir,  bequeathed  the  sum  of  $5,000 
toward  the  erection  of  the  first  building  of  the  society,  now  called  the 
"Elkins  Building".  Miss  Mary  L.  DuBois,  born  March  23,  1847,  served 
as  a  director  from  1907  down  to  the  date  of  her  death,  April  6,  1922; 
she  contributed  four  papers  to  our  publications,  and  moreover  could  al- 
ways be  relied  upon  for  faithfully  attending  the  meetings  both  of  the 
society  and  of  the   board. 


^  ^—7. 


A    COLLECTION    OF    PAPERS 


READ  BEFORE  THE 


BUCKS  COUNTY 

HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 


PUBLISHED  FOR  THE  SOCIETY 

BY 

FACKENTHAL  PUBLICATION  FUND 

1926 


VOLUME   V 


EDITORIAL  COMMITTEE 
Henry  C.  Mercer,  Sc.D.  Hon.  Harman  Yekkes 

Warren  S.  Ely  ■  Horace  M.  Mann 

B.  F.  Fackenthal.  Jr.,  Sc.D. 


V,  S 


Press  of 

The  Tribune  Publishing  Co. 

Meadville,  Pa. 


^ 


CONTENTS 

Page 

List   of    Illustrations ^'" 

Officers  of  the   Society -'^' 

Changes  in  Personnel  of  Officers • ^^^ 


PAPERS 

Dutch  Settlement  in  Bucks   County.  .  .Warren  S.   Ely 1 

An     Investigation     of     the     "Giant's 

Grave"    Dr-  Henry  C.  Mercer 11 

Branding  Cattle  in  Idaho Joseph  C.   Rca 14 

Branding  Cattle  in  Kansas  in  1858.  .  .  .Thaddeus    S.    Kenderdine.  .  .  16 

C  Warren  S.  Ely 18 


Turnpike  Roads  in  Bucks  County..  < 


Edward   R.    Kirk 20 

Henry  W.   Gross 24 

William   S.   Erdrnan,   M.D...  28 

Frank   K.    Swain 30 

Mrs.  H.  S.  Prentiss  Nichols  33 

Frank   Saurman    34 

Seth  T.  Walton 34 

Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 35 

The   "Draisiana"   or   Pedestrian   Hob- 
byhorse of  1819 Horace  Wells  Sellers 37 

Life    and   Work    of    the    Rev.    Peter 

Henry    Dorsius    Rev.    W.    J.    Hinke,    Ph.D., 

D.D •■••  44 

Gristmills     of     an     Ancient     Type, 

Known  as  Norse  Mills Horace  M.  Mann 68 

Notes  on  the  Norse  Mill Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 75 

Roulet  Volant  or  Norse  Mill Rudolph  P.  Hommel 80 

Biographical    Notice    of    Joseph     B. 

Walter,    M.D Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr..  .  .  84 

Making  a  Dugout  Boat  in  Mississippi .  .  Frank    K.    Swain 87 

Manners    and     Customs    of    Eighty 

Years  Ago   ^'•^iss  Mary  S.  Woodman 90 

Cupping   and    Bleeding George  M.  Grim,  M.D 95 

George  Taylor,  Signer  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence Warren  S.   Ely 


101 


IV  CONTENTS 

The  Homes  of  George  Taylor Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.  .  .  .    113 

Bucks  County  Women  in  Wartime ....  Mrs.  Mary  Heaton 134 

Historical    Reminiscences    of    Cutta- 

lossa  Creek   Thaddeus  S.  Kenderdine ....    141 

Maple  Sugar  Making  in  Southwest- 
ern Pennsylvania  and  Northwest- 
ern  Virginia    E.   F.   Bowlby 172 

Norse  Mills  of  Colonial  Times Frederick  H.  Shelton 175 

Horse   Hopples    Henry  W.  Gross 186 

Basket    Making    Grier   Scheetz    190 

Notes  on  Basket  Making Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 192 

Basket  Making  in  Durham  Township.  Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr....    196 

Early   Pennsylvania   Pottery William  B.  Montague 197 

Well  Caves  of  Bucks  County Miss  Belle  Van  Sant 202 

Notes   on   Forgotten   Trades Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 207 

The    Ringing    Rocks    of    Bridgeton 

Township    Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr 212 

Our  Local  Flora John  A.  Ruth 222 

Biographical    Notice   of    Clarence    D. 

Hotchkiss    Warren  S.  Ely 232 

An  Ancient  Indian  Pipe  from  Bucks 

County    Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 235 

The  Divining  Rod  in  Bucks  County. .  .Horace  M.  Mann 239 

Wafer  Irons    Dr.  Henry  C.  Alercer 245 

Octagonal  or  So-called  "Eight- 
Square"   Schoolhouses    Alden   M.   Collins 251 

Early  History  of  Bedminster  Town- 
ship     William  H.  Keichline 261 

Biographical  Notice  of  John  A.  Ruth..  Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr 275 

Shad  Fishing  in  the  Delaware  River.  .  Horace   M.    Mann 279 

Growing,  Treating  and  Drying  Flax..  Elijah  R.  Case.  C.E.,  M.S...   282 

Wool  Combing  by  Hand William   B.    Montague 284 

Octagonal  or  So-called  "Eight- 
Square"  Schoolhouses    Warren  S.   Ely 290 

Sketch  of  Dr.  Jonathan  Ingham John  Hall  Ingham,  Esq 308 

Broom  Making  by  Hand Grier   Scheetz    312 

Ancient    Methods    of    Threshing    in 

Bucks  County   Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 315 

Passing  Events  (Paper  No.  1) Frank  K.  Swain 324 


CONTENTS  V 

Figurehead  of  Chief  Tammany  from 
the  Old  Ship-of-the-Line.  Dela- 
ware    Col.  Henry  D.  Paxson 339 

Bucks  County  Samplers Mrs.  William  R.  Mercer.  .  .  .    347 

History  of  Church's  School  in  Buck- 
ingham Township   Mrs.    Clayton   D.    Fretz 357 

Old  Methods  of  Taking  Fish Warren  Fretz    361 

Earlj'  History  of  Washington  Cross- 
ing and   Its    Environs Warren  S.   Ely 376 

A   Lost  Stoveplate   Inscription Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 388 

The  Making  of  Felt  Hats Horace    M.    Mann 401 

Passing  Events    (Paper   No.   2) Frank    K.    Sw-ain 407 

Old    Household    Industries Mrs.  Florence  Kirk  Blackfan  418 

The  Wire  Fabric  Industry  in  America.  .  Louis  C.  Beers 423 

Old  Fences  in  Bucks  County Henry  W.   Gross 429 

Col.  Arthur  Erwin  and  James  Fenni- 
more  Cooper's  Novel  "Wyandotte 
or  the  Hutted  Knoll" Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr. .  .  .   433 

Old-Fashioned  Garden  Flowers George  Mac  Reynolds 446 

Wells  and  Pumps  in  Bucks  County ..  .James    H.    Fitzgerald 454 

The     Early     Courthouses    of     Bucks 

County    Mrs.   Mary  T.   Hillborn 4^1 

The  Lowther  Family  of  Buckingham.  .  Mrs.  Ada  Lowther  Wilkinson  465 

Notes  on  Adobe  Bricks Horace  M.  Mann 471 

Discussion  of  Mr.   Mann's   Paper  on 

Adobe  Bricks Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 476 

The     Zithers     of     the     Pennsylvania 

Germans     Dr.   Henry  C.   Mercer 482 

The    Path    that    Led    to    the    Indian 

Village    of    Play wicky Matthias    H.    Hall 497 

An   Attempt    to     Find    the     Site     of 

the    Indian   Town   of   Playwicky.  .  .  .  Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 500 

The   Old  Heath   Mill  and   Its   Early 

Owners    Capt.  R.  C.  Holcomb,  (M.C.) 

U.  S.  N 508 

The  Dating  of  Old  Houses Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 536 

The  Laux  Family  of  Bucks  County, 

Penns}'-lvania    Hon.  James   B.   Laux 550 

The    Origin   of    Log    Houses    in   the 

United  States    Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 568 


VI  CONTENTS 

The  Ferry  Tract  at  New  Hope,  Pa., 

and  Coryell's  Ferry  in  New  Jersey.  .  Capt.  R.  C.  Holcomb,  (M.C.) 

U.  S.  N 584 

Tobacco   and    Its    Culture   in    Bucks 

County    Grier  Scheetz   612 

Remarks  on  Mr.  Scheetz's   Paper  on 
Tobacco  Culture    Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr. .  . .   621 

Early  History  of  Neshaminy  Presby- 
terian Church  Warren  S.  Ely 624 

Recollections  of  Tennent  School Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 631 

Schoolboy  Memories    Hon.   Harman  Yerkes 641 

The  Old  York  Road Capt.  R.  C.  Holcomb,  (M.C.) 

U.  S.  N 650 

The      Samuel      Hart      Collection     of 

Manuscripts,   1777-1877    Warren  S.  Ely 717 

The   End   of   Open   Fir>   Cooking   in 

Bucks  County   Frank  K.  Swain 732 

Life  Near  Grand   Rapids,   Michigan, 
in  1850   Edward  Bradford  Thomas. .   734 

Hunting,    Trapping    and    Fishing    in 

Bucks    County    Thaddeus  S.  Kenderdine.  .  .  .    736 

Random  Notes  on  Forgotten  Trades..  Dr.    Henry    C.    Mercer    and 

Horace   M.    Mann 740 

Andrew  Ellicott,  The  Great  Surveyor.  .Warren   S.    Ely 745 

The  Last  of  the  File-Makers Henry  K.  Deisher 751 

The   Colonial   Carpenter Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 755 

History    of   the    Lucy    M.    Burd    In- 
dustrial  School    Miss  Lucy  M.  Burd 756 

Herbs  and  Plants  Used  for  Medicinal 

Purposes  by  Colonial  Settlers Miss  Julia  B.  Abbott 763 

The  Proctor  Family  of  Upper  Bucks 

County    Prof.  William  H.   Slotter...   766 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 

Portraits  of  Five  Former  Directors Frontispiece 

Dutch  Reformed  Church,  Churchville,  Pa 10 

Cattle  Branding  Irons  used  in  Idaho,  1860-70 15 

Tollhouse  with  Single  Gate,  Paxson's  Corners 18 

The  "Draisiana"  or  Two-wheeled   Hobbyhorse 38 

Norse  Hill  used  in  Madison  County,  N.  C 69 

Norse  Mill  of  Shetland  Islands,  1880 75 

Roulet   Volant   or    Norse    Mill 80 

Norse  Mill  in  the  South  of  France,  1578 82 

Portrait  of  Joseph  B.   Walter,   M.D 84 

Dugout  Canoe  from  Natches,   Miss 89 

Cupping  and  Bleeding  Vessels  and  Instruments 99 

Portrait  of   Col.    George   Taylor 101 

Taylor-Parsons  House,  Easton,  Pa 113 

George  Taylor's    Bookplate,    1778 115 

Invoice  for  Pig  Iron  with  Signature  of  George  Taylor,  1739 117 

George  Taylor's  Catasauqua  Home 119 

Oath  of  Allegiance  taken  by  George  Taylor,  1778 121 

Last  part  of  Geo.  Taylor's  Will,  with  Signatures 127 

Home  of  Robert  Lettis  Hooper,  Jr.,  at  Easton,  Pa 128 

George  Taylor's  Monument  in  Easton  Cemetery 131 

George  Taylor's  Pistols  bequeathed  to  Robert  Traill 133 

Horse  Hopples  in  Museum  of  the  Society 186 

Palisades  or   Narrows  of   Nockamixon 212 

View  of  Bridgeton  Township   Ringing  Rocks 213 

Cavities  in  Conglomerate  at  Monroe 213 

Bluff  of  Conglomerate,  near  Holland,  N.  J 215 

Weathered  Trap  Rock  Boulders,  with  Shrinkage  Cracks, 

two    etchings    217 

Trap  Rock  Boulders,  Swamp  Creek,  near  Sumneytown,  Pa 219 

Trap  Rocks  at  Stony  Garden,  Split  apart  by  Water  and 

Weather    Conditions    219 

Giant's  Causeway,  North  Coast  of  Ireland,  two  views 221 

View  Overlooking  Delaware  River  from  Top  of  Nockamixon 

Palisades    231 

Portrait  of  Clarence   D.   Hotchkiss 232 


VIH  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Delaware  Indian  Wooden  Tobacco  Pipe,  side  view 235 

Top  View  of  Same  Pipe — Found  in  Bucks   County 236 

Wafer  Irons  in  Museum  of  the  Society 245 

Hexagonal   Schoolhouse,   Lower   Saucon   Township 251 

Plan  Showing  Interior  of  an  Octagonal  Schoolhouse 254 

Remains  of  a  Stone  Built   Flax  Dr5nng  Oven 283 

Spinning  Wheel — Tail  piece 289 

Octagonal  Schoolhouse,  Delaware   County,   1835 291 

Old  "Eight-Square"  Schoolhouse,  Wrightstown  Township 291 

Friends'  Meeting  House,  Burlington,  N.  J.,  1682-1787 292 

Dutch  Trading  Post,  Trenton,  N.  J 294 

Plan  of  Octagonal  Schoolhouse,  Newton  Square,   Pa 296 

Plan   Showing   Construction  of   Same 297 

Flails  in  Bucks  County  Historical  Society's   Museum 317 

Figurehead  of  Chief  Tammany  at  Annapolis,  Md 341 

Bucks  County  Samplers — 

1.  Ruth    Bradshaw,    1712 347 

2.  Mary   Sheeds,    1806 348 

3.  Susan   Magill,   1812 349 

4.  Rachel    Broadhurst,    1812 350 

5.  Susan  Schleiffer,  1816 351 

6.  Mary  D.  Richardson,  Attleborough  School,  1821 352 

7.  Susan  Geary,   Fallsington   School,   1832 353 

8.  Acrostic,  Composed  by  E.  S..  A.  D.,  1834 354 

Old  Methods  of  Taking  Fish— 

Dipnet  for  Taking   Fish 361 

Spears   or    Gigs 362 

"Schlock   Isen",   or   Striking   Iron 363 

Mallets  for  Stunning  Fish  through  Ice.  . 364 

Lamps  or  Torches  used  for  Gigging 367 

Throw   Net  for  Taking   Fish 367 

Eel  Gaff  and  Eel  Tongs — two  etchings 368 

Fyke  Net  for  Taking  Fish 373 

Single  Brail,  Scoop  Net  or  Hommer 373 

Discovery  of  a  Missing  Stoveplate  Inscription — 

1.  "Be  Not  Overcome  of  Evil",  Stoveplate 389 

2.  "This  is  the  Year  in  which  Rages — " 389 

3.  Fireplace  of  the  Home  House,  showing  Stove  Hole 391 

4.  Fireplace  showing  Postament  with   Hole  Walled  Up 393 

6.  Pen  Sketch  of  Five-plate  Stove  in  Its  Original  Position....   390 

7.  The  Indian  War  Plate  in  the  Museum 401 

Tombstone   of   Col.   Arthur    Erwin 433 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IX 

Zithers  of  the  Pennsylvania  Germans — 

1.  Seven   Plectrum  Zithers  in  the   Museum 483 

2.  Three  Zithers  in  the  Museum 485 

3.  Modern   German    Bow   Zither 490 

4.  Norwegian  and   Dutch   Zithers . 491 

5.  Zither  and  Two  Tromp   Alarines 493 

6.  The  Kentucky  Dulcimore 494 

7.  Playing   the    Dulcimore 495 

The  Dating  of  Old  Houses — 

1.  Wrought  Iron  Nails 536 

2.  Cut  Nails,   Hammer  Headed 537 

3.  Cut  Nails,  Stamp  Headed 538 

4.  Cross  Section  of  Cut  Nails  after  1796 539 

5.  Cut  Nails,  L  Headed  and  Headless 539 

6.  Wrought  Iron  Door  Hinges  H  and  HL  Types 540 

7.  Wrought  Iron  Door  Hinges,  "Hook  and  Eye" 

alias  "Strap"  Type    541 

8.  Cast   Iron   Butt   Door   Hinges 541 

9.  Plain  Ovolo  Door  Panels 542 

10.  Quirked  Ovola  and  Ogee  Panels 543 

11.  Machine-Made    Door    Panels 544 

12.  Wrought   Iron   Thumb   Latches 545 

13.  Wrought   Iron   Thumb    Latches 546 

14.  Norfolk    Latches    547 

15.  Cast   Iron  Thumb-Latches,   afl^r   1840 547 

16.  Plastering   Lath    549 

17.  Pointless  Screws,  before   1846 544 

Taufschein  of  John  Adam  Laux,  1771 565 

Laux  Family  Coat-of-Arms 566 

Origin  of  Log  Houses  in  the  United  States — 

1.  Front  of  Log  Dwelling  in  Siberia 569 

2.  Corner  of  the  Frost  Garrison  House,  Elliot,  Me 569 

3.  Corner  of  Fort  Western  Garrison  House,  Augusta,  Me 569 

4.  Corner  of   Fort  Halifax,  Winslow,   Me 569 

5.  Side  View  of  Fort  Halifax,  Winslow,   Me 571 

6.  Fort  Halifax,  Winslow,   Maine 571 

7.  Corner  of  the  Mclntyre  Garrison  House,  York,  Me 569 

8.  The  Bunker  Garrison  House,  Durham,  N.  H 571 

9.  Corner  of  the  Dam  Garrison  House,  Dover,  N.  H 573 

10.  Corner  of  the  Gillman  Garrison  House,  Exeter,  N.   H 573 

11.  Riggs   Log  House,   Gloucester,   Mass 573 

12.  Log  Dwelling  at  Rockport,   Mass 575 

13.  The  Parks  Log  House,  near  Horsham,  Pa 575 

14.  Indian  Ridge   Log  House,  near  Perkasie,   Pa 575 

15.  The   Parks   Log  House,   Direct  View 577 

16.  Wismer   Log  House,   near   Plumsteadville,   Pa 577 


X  ILLUSTRATIONS 

17.  Chalfont  Log  House,  near  Chalfont,   Pa 577 

18.  Log  House  near  Plumsteadville,   Pa 579 

10.  Slifer  Log  House  near  Keller's  Church,  Pa 579 

20.  Darby  Creek  Log  House 579 

21.  Fragments  of  Log  House  at  Furlong,  Pa 581 

22.  Log  Dwelling  in  Province  of  Upland,  Sweden 581 

23.  Log  Dwelling  in  Province  of  Upland,  Sweden 581 

24.  Log  Hay  Shed  in  Province  of  Harjedalen,  Sweden 583 

25.  Old  Sawmill  in  Province  of  Harjedalen,  Sweden 583 

Tobacco  Drying  House,  in  North  Carolina 623 

Ground  Plan  of  North  Carolina  Tobacco  Drying  House 623 


BUCKS  COUNTY  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 

Organized  November  20,  1880. 
Incorporated  February  23,  1885. 

For  Charter,  Constitution  and  By-laws,  see  Vol.  I. 


OFFICERS 

For  the  year  ending  January,  1926. 

President 

Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer 

Vice-Presidents 
Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.  Col.  Henry  D.   Paxson 

Directors 

Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr Riegelsville,  Pa. 

Warren  S.   Ely Doylestown,  Pa. 

Mrs.   E.  Y.   Barnes Yardley,  Pa. 

(Term   expire.s  January,   1926.) 

Col.  Henry  D.  Paxson Holicong,  Pa. 

J.   Herman  Barnsley Newtown,  Pa. 

Mrs.  Harman  Yerkes Doylestown,  Pa. 

(Term   expires   January,   1927.) 

Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer Doylestown,  Pa. 

Mrs.    Richard   Watson Doylestown,  Pa. 

Grier  Scheetz Bethlehem,  Pa. 

(Term   expires   January.    1928.) 

Curator  Librarian 

Dr.    Henry   C.    Mercer  Warren  S.   Ely 

Treasurer  Secretary 

Dr.   B.   F.   Fackenthal,   Jr.  Horace    M.    Mann 

Assistant  Curator 
Horace  M.  Mann 


CHANGES  IN  PERSONNEL  OF  OFFICERS 


Presidents 

The   Bucks  County  Historical  Society  has  had  but  two  Presidents 
since  its  organization  in   1880 

Gen.  W.  W.  H.  Davis,  1880  to  1910 

Dr.   Henry  C.   Mercer,  since  Jan.   17,   1911 

Vice-Presidents 

John  S.  Wilhams,  Jan.  15,  1901,  to  Aug.  21,  1920 
Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer,  Jan.  21,  1908,  to  Jan.  17,  1911 
Joseph  B.  Walter,  M.D.,  Jan.  17,  1911,  to  Aug.  18,  1917 
Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.,  since  Jan.  18,  1910 
Col.  Henry  D.  Paxson,  since  Jan.  15,  1921 

Directors 

The  following  changes  have  been  made  in  the   Board  of  Directors 
since  the  publication  of  Vol.  IV. 

Col.   Henry  D.   Paxson,  January  18,   1918,  to  succeed 

Dr.  Joseph  B.  Walter,  who  died  August  18,  1917 

J.  Herman  Barnsley,  June  12,  1920,  to  succeed 

Clarence   D.  Hotchkiss,  who  died  January   14,   1920 

*Grier  Scheetz,  January  21,   1922,  to  succeed 

Thomas   C.   Knowles,  who  died  February  16,   1921 

Warren  S.  Ely,  October  14,  1922,  to  succeed 

Miss  Mary  L.   Du  Bois,  who  died   February   17,   1922 

Mrs.  E.  Y.  Barnes,  January  20,  1923,  to  succeed 

Thaddeus  C.  Kenderdine,  who  died  April  6,   1922 


Grier   Scheetz  died  suddenly  at  Bethlehem,   Pa.,  October  6,   1926. 


Dutch  Settlement  in  Bucks  County. 

BY   WARREN   S.   ELY,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Churchville  Meeting,   May   23,   1917.) 

mtnmtm^^  HE  place  of  our  meeting  today  is  near  the  geo- 
graphical centre  of  the  section  settled  in  last  dec- 
ade of  the  seventeenth,  and  first  decade  of  the 
eighteenth  century  by  the  descendants  of  the 
Hollanders  who  founded  New  Netherlands  in 
and  about  the  present  city  of  New  York,  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  earlier.  It  seems  therefore  especially  fitting 
that  we  should  devote  some  attention  to  the  history  of  these  first 
settlers  in  this  section  and  their  part  in  the  general  plan  of  de- 
velopment of  our  natural  resources  and  the  building  up  of  a  new 
province  under  the  beneficent  influence  of  Penn's  Holy  Ex- 
periment. 

Daniel  Webster  once  said : 

"There  is  still  wanting  a  history  which  shall  trace  the  progress  of 
social  life.  We  still  need  to  learn  how  our  ancestors  in  our  houses 
were  fed,  lodged  and  clothed,  and  what  were  their  employments.  We 
wish  to  know  more  of  the  changes  which  took  place  from  age  to  age 
in  the  homes  of  the  first  settlers.     We  want  a  history  of  firesides." 

The  section  settled  by  these  Dutch  people  was  a  compact  but 
irregularly  shaped  tract,  comprising  parts  of  the  townships  of 
Bensalem.  Southampton,  Northampton  and  Middletown.  The 
Neshaminy  creek  at  this  point  makes  a  wide  detour  to  the  west- 
ward, penetrating  the  Holland  tract  to  its  centre  and  thereby  gave 
its  name  to  the  section  and  the  first  church  organized  therein. 
It  had  all  been  surveyed  and  laid  out  in  large  tracts  to  the  original 
purchasers  of  William  Penn,  before  its  purchase  by  the  Dutch, 
but  in  only  a  few  instances  "had  been  settled  on  by  these  English 
purchasers,  though  it  comprised  one  of  the  finest  and  most  pro- 
I 


2  DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

ductive  agricultural  districts  in  our  county.  In  the  case  of 
Dutch  purchases  they  were  often  made  in  large  tracts  by  the 
•fathers  of  the  actual  settlers,  the  former  remaining  in  their  na- 
tive settlement  on  Long  Island  and  Staten  Island,  or  on  the  Rari- 
tan  in  East  Jersey  or  on  the  upper  Hudson,  into  which  sections 
the  Dutch  settlements  had  expanded  several  years  before  the 
Dutch  invasion  of  Pennsylvania. 

This  was  true  of  the  Van  Horn  and  Van  Buskirk  families. 
Barendt  Christian  and  Peter  Lawrensen,^  the  respective  foun- 
ders of  these  two  families  in  Bucks  county,  purchased  in  1703  a 
tract  of  over  2000  acres  lying  along  the  west  bank  of  the  Nesham- 
iny  opposite  the  present  site  of  Langhorne  in  the  townships  of 
Northampton  and  Southampton,  which  was  resurveyed  and  di- 
vided between  them,  and  purchasers  of  them,  by  John  Cutler, 
surveyor,  in  1706,  and  in  the  following  year  was  conveyed  by 
them  to  their  sons  who  became  the  actual  settlers.  Barendt 
Christian  never  came  to  Bucks  county  but  died  in  Bergen  county. 
New  Jersey.  Peter  Lawrence  may  possibly  have  settled  within 
the  county.  Christian,  Abraham,  Peter,  Nicholas  and  Barendt 
Van  Hooren,  sons  of  Barendt  Christian,  settled  on  this  and  other 
tracts  purchased  by  their  father,  about  1707,  and  the  family  has 
been  prominently  identified  with  the  affairs  of  Bucks  county  to 
this  date. 

The  Van  Sandt  family,  descendants  of  Gerret  Stofifelse,  settled 
in  1695  on  large  tracts  of  land  in  Bensalem  purchased  of  Joseph 
Growdon  whose  holdings  included  the  whole  upper  half  of  that 
township.  The  Van  de  Grifts,  descendants  of  Jacob  Lendertsen 
settled  in  the  same  locality  at  practically  the  same  date. 

The  Van  Artsdalens,  who  settled  in  this  section  prior  to  1720, 
were  descendants  of  Simon  Janse,  who  emigrated  from  Holland 
to  New  Amsterdam  in  1636. 

1  The  date  of  these  settlements  marks  an  important  event  in  the  liistory  of 
the  Dutch  in  America,  as  it  was  approximately  the  date  at  which  the  families 
belonging  to  the  third  generation  in  this  country  assumed  permanent  sur- 
names. Up  to  this  time  the  surnames  of  the  sons  were  their  fathers'  given 
name,  generally  with  the  addition  of  se  or  sen.  The  almost  universal  change 
at  about  this  time  is  well  illustrated  in  the  families  here  cited.  The  founder 
of  the  VanHorn  family  in  America,  was  Christian  Barendtse,  from  Horn  or 
Hooren,  Holland,  a  prominent  officer  of  New  Amsterdam  in  1653,  who  died 
of  sunstroke  while  building  a  tide  water  mill  near  New  Castle  on  the  Dela- 
ware July  26,  1658.  His  widow  married  Lawrence  Andriessen,  who  came 
from  Boosekirk,  and  had  children  by  him  among  whom  was  Peter  Lawren- 
sen  above  named,  who  with  a  son  of  the  first  marriage,  Barendt  Christianse, 
made  the  purchase  cited.  The  children  of  both  assumed  the  names  of  Van- 
Horn  and  Van  Buskirk,  from  the  places  of  nativity  of  their  respective 
grandsires. 


DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  3 

The  Slacks  were  descendants  of  Cornelius  Slecht,  who  came 
from  Holland  in  1652,  one  branch  migrating  up  the  Hudson 
where  they  intermarried  with  the  Wynkoops,  and  another  branch 
into  New  Jersey  whence  the  Bucks  county  settlers  came. 

The  Wynkoop  family  was  founded  in  Bucks  county  by  Gerar- 
dus  Wynkoop,  who  came  to  this  section  in  1713  from  Ulster 
county,  New  York,  and  like  his  neighbors  belonged  to  the  third 
generation  in  America.  One  of  the  oldest  tombstones  bearing  a 
legible  inscription  in  the  Dutch  Reformed  cemetery  at  Richboro 
is  that  of  his  son  Nicholas,  one  of  the  organizers  of  Abington 
Presbyterian  Church  in  1714,  who  died  in  1759.  The  latter  was 
the  father  of  Judge  Henry  Wynkoop  the  first  member  of  U.  S. 
Congress  from  -Bucks  county,  and  one  of  the  most  prominent 
patriots  of  the  Revolution,  a  sketch  of  whom  and  his  dis- 
tinguished services  to  the  county  is  already  a  part  of  our  arch- 
ives. (See  Vol.  HI  pages  156  and  197.)  The  Croesen  family, 
whose  name  is  now  variously  spelled,  descendants  of  Gerret 
Dirckse,  who  came  from  Wynschoten,  Groningen,  Holland  in 
1667,  was  represented  here  by  his  grandsons  as  early  as  1711. 
A  granddaughter  of  Gerret  was  the  wife  of  Malachi  Jones  the 
pastor  of  the  first  Presbyterian  church  in  this  section,  in  1714. 
The  Bennets,  descendants  of  William  Bennett  an  Englishman 
who  came  to  Long  Island  in  1635  and  married  a  Dutch  wife, 
made  their  appearance  in  the  Holland  of  Bucks  county  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  did  Jacobus  and  Thomas 
Craven  from  whom  the  numerous  family  of  that  name  are  de- 
scended.^ 

The  Cornells  were  one  of  the  numerous  Huguenot  families 
who  settled  among  the  Dutch  on  Long  Island,  with  whom  they 
intermarried.  Gulliam  Cornell  of  the  third  generation  born  on 
Long  Island  in  1679  was  the  founder  of  the  family  in  Bucks 
county.  They  owned  very  large  tracts  of  land  in  this  immediate 
vicinity,  where  their  descendants  are  still  very  numerous. 

Dirck  Hogeland,  one  of  the  early  representatives  of  the  Dutch 
element  in  Pennsylvania  Assembly  was  in  this  section  in  1721 
and  probably  earlier.     He  was  a  grandson  of  Dirck  Janse,  who 

2  It  was  at  the  house  of  Jacobus  Craven  that  Rev.  William  Tennet  first 
preached  to  the  Scotch-Irish  settlers  in  Warwick  and  Warrington,  while  pas- 
tor of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Bensalem,  near  Bridgewater,  and  before 
he  founded  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Warwick  in  1726,  of  which  Craven 
was  one  of  the  first  trustees. 


4  DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

came  from  Hooglandt  in  1657  and  settled  on  Long  Island.  The 
Van  Pelts  and  Van  Dyckes  were  here  as  early  as  1705,  and  the 
LaRues  and  Praals  of  Huguenot  vintage  appear  about  the 
same  date. 

The  names  of  nearly  all  these  families  appear  on  the  first 
roster  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  of  Neshaminy  and  Ben- 
salem  organized  1710,  an  account  of  the  early  history  of  which 
is  given  later  in  the  sketch. 

These  people  represented,  in  nearly  every  instance,  the  third 
generation  of  the  Dutch  settlement  in  America,  and  practically 
all  of  them  had  been  born  and  reared  under  English  jurisdiction, 
the  Dutch  territory  having  been  conquered  by  the  English  in 
1664.  They  were  therefore  less  alien  in  character  to  the  English 
among  whom  they  settled  than  either  the  Welsh,  Scotch-Irish  or 
Germans,  who  constituted  the  other  three  elements  in  the  forma- 
tion of  American  citizenship  in  Pennsylvania.  For  this  reason 
they  were  called  upon  to  take  their  part  in  local  and  provincial 
self  government  at  an  early  date  and  justified  the  trust  reposed 
in  them. 

Stoffel  Van  Sandt,  the  most  prominent  character  in  the  church 
government  of  the  Dutch  Colony  as  shown  later  in  this  narrative, 
was  a  local  magistrate  from  1717  to  1727,  and  represented  Bucks 
county  in  the  Provincial  Assembly  in  1721.  He  was  succeeded  in 
1723  by  Christian  Van  Horn  who  served  almost  continuously 
until  1737.  Gerrit  Van  Sandt  was  a  representative  in  the  ses- 
sions of  1743-4,  1749-50  and  1751-2;  Dirck  or  Derick  Hoge- 
land,  in  those  of  1747-8,  1752-3  and  1754-5  ;  Gabriel  Van  Horn  in 
1756-7;  Henry  Krewsen  continuously  from  1762  to  1773  Ger- 
ardus  Wynkoop  in  the  Provincial  Assembly  of  1774-5  and  in  the 
State  Assembly  of  1778-9,  and  Guilliam  Cornell,  in  the  latter  for 
1777.  Leonard  Van  de  Grift  was  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  in 
1715-16. 

Nearly  all  the  prominent  families  above  mentioned  were  repre- 
sented upon  the  rosters  of  the  officers  and  members  of  the  mili- 
tary companies  raised  in  1747-48,  1756,  and  1758,  for  the  defence 
of  the  Pennsylvania  frontier,  comprising  practically  the  whole 
membership  of  the  several  companies  raised  in  their  section  of 
the  county.  They  also  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  revolutionary 
war,  many  of  them  holding  commissions  in  the  Continental  army 


DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  0 

and  state  militia.  Nathaniel  Van  Sandt,  a  great-grandson  of 
Gerrett  the  founder  of  the  family  in  Bucks  county,  was  captain 
of  a  company  in  the  "Flying  Camp"  and  was  taken  prisoner  on 
Long  Island  in  the  disastrous  campaign  of  1776.  A  number  of 
letters  written  by  him  while  in  captivity  and  the  roll  of  his  com- 
pany are  among  our  collections. 

I  sincerely  regret  that  I  cannot,  from  the  meagre  evidence  ob- 
tainable, present  a  vivid  pen  picture  of  these  industrious,  home- 
loving  yet  energetic,  progressive  people  in  their  colonial  environ- 
ment. From  the  tools,  furniture  and  articles  of  clothing,  trans- 
ferred from  the  garrets  of  the  old  homesteads  to  the  museum  of 
our  society  from  time  to  time,  and  from  inventories  of  their 
goods  and  chattels  we  can  form  some  idea  of  their  home  life 
and  labors. 

Retaining  the  racial  characteristics  of  their  frugal,  industrious 
and  adventurous  grandsires,  and  by  local  environment,  inured  to 
the  exigencies  of  life  in  a  primitive  wilderness,  they  were  well 
fitted  for  the  sphere  of  action  in  which  their  lives  were  cast. 
Primarily  agriculturists  they  were  trained  in  practically  all  the 
domestic  industries  so  necessary  to  life  under  primitive  condi- 
tions. The  inventories  of  the  personal  estates  of  decedents  of 
this  section  during  the  colonial  period,  abstracts  of  a  number  of 
which  are  quoted  below,  show  that  each  and  every  family  was 
so  well  equipped  with  the  tools  and  appliances  of  the  various 
local  vocations  necessary  to  transform  the  products  of  the  farm 
and  forest  into  food,  clothing  and  articles  of  commerce,  as  well 
as  for  the  manufacture  of  the  tools  and  appliances  themselves,  as 
to  make  them  practically  independent  of  the  professional  artisan. 

Every  Dutch  farm  house  was  equipped  with  its  weaving  room 
containing  its  "loom  and  tacklin"  and  with  linen  and  wool  spin- 
ning wheels,  reels,  swingles,  hatchels,.  cards,  flaxbreaks,  and  the 
minor  appliances  for  the  manufacture  of  linen  and  woolen  fab- 
rics, and  combinations  of  both,  from  the  raw  material  to  the 
finished  product.  Thus  practically  all  the  clothes  worn  by  mem- 
bers of  the  family  were  produced  from  the  soil  of  their  own 
farms  and  fabricated  by  them  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  settlement, 
before  prosperity  and  a  more  intimate  association  with  the  out- 
side world  made  them  "vain  and  fashionable."  There  is  abundant 
evidence  however  that  the  Dutch  families  held  to  the  use  of  the 


O  DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

simple,  becoming  and  durable  home-made  fabrics  in  their  dress 
for  several  generations  and  to  a  comparatively  recent  date.^  The 
inventory  of  the  goods  of  Susanna  Van  Horn  in  1776,  includes  a 
silk  "cloke,"  a  gold  ring  and  Delph  and  Queensware.  Calico 
made  its  appearance  in  1760.  There  was  always  a  stock  of  linen 
cloth,  linsey-woolsey,  druggett  and  oznabrigs  as  well  as  linen  and 
woolen  yarn,  thread  and  tape  on  hand. 

In  the  line  of  food  and  merchantable  products  there  was  the 
"cheese  fatts"  (vats),  mortar  and  pestle,  pot  racks  and  chains, 
powdering  tubs,  milk  pails  and  other  wooden  vessels ;  pewter 
and  earthenware,  etc.,  etc. 

For  economy's  sake,  as  in  later  days,  some  of  the  larger  appli- 
ances were  owned  in  common  with  a  neighbor  or  neighbors,  as 
1748,  "His  Part  in  ye  Cider  Mill ;"  in  1760,  "two  thirds  of  a  cross- 
cut saw"  and  in  1777,  "a  right  in  a  Dutch  Fan."  The  first  item 
we  find  inventoried  in  1745  "his  one  half  of  the  Corn  Mill ;" 
is  of  interest  to  our  president  and  curator  who  is  an  enthusiastic 
collector  of  hand  corn  mills,  and  I  have  always  argued  with  him 
that  they  were  probably  never  used  to  any  extent  in  Bucks 
county,  for  the  reason  that  water  power  was  plentiful,  and  there 
were  so  many  early  water  power  gristmills  in  every  locality. 
Since  one  was  in  use  in  Middletown  on  the  very  banks  of  the 
Neshaminy  that  turned  at  least  a  score  of  mills  it  might  be 
argued  that  we  would  find  them  in  use  anywhere  in  Bucks  county. 
"An  Apple  Mill  and  Trough"  appears  in  1760,  and  a  "Bark 
Stone"  in  1771. 

From  the  fact  that  we  also  find  on  these  inventories  "a  small 
still"  and  some  bushels  of  malt,  it  would  seem  that  the  Dutch 
housewife  sought  to  make  her  men  folks  independent  of  the 
local  distillery  and  brewery  for  his  ardent  liquid  refreshment.  In 
addition  to  the  above  we  find  the  tools  of  the  joiner,  the  tanner, 
the  shoemaker,  smith  and  tailor  in  the  inventories  of  the  goods 
of  farmers.  In  the  olden  time  many  of  the  domestic  craftsmen 
went  from  house  to  house  at  regular  or  irregular  intervals  to 
supply  the  wants  of  the  farmer's  family  in  the  way  of  shoes, 
clothes  and  utensils. 

Indicative  of  the  different  values  of  coins,  "money  scales  & 

3  At  this  point  Mr.  Ely  exhibited  a  full  suit  of  home  spun  clothes  worn 
by  Adrian  Cornell,  of  Northampton,  a  century  ago.  Also  a  pair  of  wooden 
shoes. 


DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  7 

weights"  are  found  in  the  possession  of  nearly  every  family. 
"A  Table  of  Black  Walnut  and  a  Form  to  it"  is  inventoried  in 
1725.  "A  Riding  Chair"  appears  in  1749,  and  a  "Gum  shaver" 
in  the  same  year  shows  that  the  hollow  gum  tree  was  used  as 
a  cask  for  malt  and  other  necessaries.  "Pigeon  netts"  for  trap- 
ping wild  pigeons  were  quite  common  after  1760  or  1765. 

Another  fact  brought  out  prominently  by  scrutinizing  these 
time-stained  lists  of  goods  of  the  country  dweller  among  these 
fertile  hills  and  valleys  is  that  the  Dutch  farmer  of  Colonial 
times  was  a  considerable  slave  holder.  Many  negroes  were  in- 
ventoried. As  indicating  the  price  of  human  merchandise  we 
quote  the  following : 

1725  Negro  Woman  £45— Negro  children,  £15,  £10  and  £5 
(according  to  age). 

1748— Negro  Woman,  £30— Negro  girl  7  yrs  old  £20.  Ne- 
gro Boy,  5  yrs  old,  £15 — Negro  Girl,  2  yrs  old,  £10.  Negro 
child  6  mos  old   £5. 

1760 — Negro  man  called  Mink,  £75.  Negro  lad  called  Cuff, 
£60.    Old  negro  man  called  Futry,  £30.     Negro  Boy  £20. 

The  Dutch  element  were  the  latest  and  largest  slaveholders  in 
Bucks  county.  In  1780,  when  the  first  public  registry  of  slaves 
in  Bucks  county  was  made  under  the  provisions  of  the  Act  of 
Assembly  for  the  gradual  extinction  of  slavery,  which  compelled 
every  owner  of  slaves  to  register  them  in  the  prothonotary's 
office  by  a  certain  date  or  suffer  the  penalty  of  having  them  de- 
clared free,  over  one-half  the  whole  number  owned  in  Bucks 
county  were  held  by  the  descendants  of  the  Dutch  families  in 
Northampton,  Southampton.  Warminster  and  Bensalem.  Under 
the  provisions  of  the  above  cited  law,  which  automatically  freed 
the  slaves  born  after  its  passage  at  a  fixed  age,  and  provided  for 
the  care  of  the  aged,  slavery  disappeared  in  our  county  about  1830. 

THE  DUTCH    REFORMED   CHURCH    OF    NORTH   AND 
S0UTH.\MPT0N. 

The  early  history  of  this  church  and  of  its  first  pastor.  Rev. 
Paulus  Van  Vlecq,  is  clearly  set  forth  in  a  paper  read  before  our 
society  last  January,  prepared  by  Rev.  William  J.  Hinke,  Ph. 
D.,  D.D.,  professor  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Religions  at  Au- 
burn Theological  Seminarv,  Auburn,  New  York,  one  of  the  best 


8  DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

authorities  of  our  time  on  ecclesiastic  history.  Dr.  Hinke  also 
contributed  a  more  elaborate  article  on  the  same  subject  for  the 
Journal  of  the  Presbyterian  Historical  Society,  (Vol.  I,  pp.  11- 
134),  which  included  a  full  copy  of  the  church  record  from  the 
original  book  in  the  handwriting  of  Parson  Van  Vlecq,  and  his 
successors  in  charge  of  "The  Christian  Church  at  Chammenji 
Crick." 

This  history  is  already  a  part  of  our  archives,  being  published 
in  Volume  IV  of  our  papers,  and  we  do  not  purpose  repeating 
the  data  therein  contained,  but  desire  to  draw  some  conclusions 
therefrom  not  clearly  set  forth  though  indicated  therein. 

While  the  historians  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  North  and 
Southampton,  trace  its  history  back  to  the  organization  effected 
by  the  Dutch  settlers  in  this  region  with  Paulus  Van  Vlecq  as 
their  pastor  on  May  10,  1710,  they  fail  to  realize  that  the  church 
then  organized  was  virtually  a  Presbyterian  church  and  finally 
became  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Bensalem  still  in  existence 
near  the  Neshaminy  creek  on  the  Bristol  road  between  Nesham- 
iny  Falls  and  Bridgewater  in  Bensalem  township.  This  church, 
with  its  original  walls,  bearing  date  1705  is  still  standing.  In 
the  graveyard  there  are  numerous  rudely  marked  graves,  but 
none  of  them  legible  to  show  the  last  resting  place  of  the  founders 
of  this  pioneer  church.  It  is  with  the  intention  of  clearing  up 
this  record  that  we  review  a  part  of  Dr.  Hinke's  paper.  Failing 
to  secure  ordination  from  the  Holland  Synod,  Van  Vlecq  was 
licensed  by  the  Philadelphia  Presbytery  when  he  organized  the 
church  in  1710,  though  his  parishioners  were  almost  wholly  Low 
Dutch,  and  members  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Churches  of  Long 
Island,  Staten  Island,  and  the  Raritan  district  of  New  Jersey. 
On  his  downfall  and  removal  from  Pennsylvania  in  1713,  the 
leading  families  among  the  Dutch  in  this  section  joined  with  the 
Presbyterians  in  organizing  Abington  Presbyterian  Church  in 
1714,  on  the  western  border  of  the  Dutch  settlement.  And  when 
the  Neshaminy  Church  was  revived  and  reorganized  in  1719,  by 
Malachi  Jones,  the  first  pastor  at  Abington.  they  renewed  their 
allegiance  to  the  old  church,  but  when  Rev.  Malachi  Jones  died 
in  1729,  both  churches,  Abington  and  Bensalem,  had  become 
largely  dominated  by  the  Scotch-Irish  element  that  had  settled 
both  north  and  south  of  the  Dutch  settlement,  and  the  Bensalem 


DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  9 

Church  had  been  for  years  under  the  pastorate  of  Scotch  Pres- 
byterians. Rev.  WilHam  Tennent  the  founder  of  the  Log  College 
and  of  Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church  of  Warwick  in  1726, 
was  at  that  time  preaching  there.  Tennent  was  called  to  the 
Bensalem  church  in  1721,  and  although  he  returned  to  his  old 
charge  at  Bedford,  Westchester  county,  N.  Y.,  at  intervals  dur- 
ing the  years  1723  and  1724,  he  was  virtually  pastor  at  Bensalem 
from  1721  to  1726,  the  congregation  being  supplied  by  others  at 
intervals. 

Under  these  conditions  the  Dutch  seceded  and  again  formed  a 
church  of  their  own.  We  quote  from  Dr.  Hinke's  copy  of  the 
old  church  book : 

"Anno  1730,  on  May  v30th,  have  been  instaled  as  elders  and 
deacons,  namely,  Stofifel  van  Sandf*  and  Gerrit  Croese  as  elders, 
Benjamin  Korsen  and  Abraham  van  der  Grift  as  deacons,  at 
Sammeniji,  by  Cornelius  Santford,  Minister  of  the  Gospel  on 
Staten  Island." 

Following  this  is  a  record  of  baptisms  beginning  with  May  3, 
1730,  and  continuing  to  April  21,  1737,  all  of  Dutch  families. 
This  is  followed  by  "Entries  made  during  the  Ministry  of  the 
Rev.  P.  H.  Dorsius." 

This  was  the  real  birth  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  of 
North  and  Southampton.  In  the  period  between  1730  and  1737 
the  meetings  were  held  at  the  houses  of  the  members  and  the 
pulpit  was  doubtless  filled  by  supplies  from  the  Low  Dutch 
churches  in  New  Jersey.  In  the  fall  of  1737  the  Rev.  Petrus 
Hendrickus  Dorsius  was  sent  to  them  from  Holland,  and  a  church 
was  erected  at  Feasterville,  of  which  nothing  remains  but  a 
graveyard.  The  oldest  inscribed  tombstones,  now  forming  part 
of  the  enclosing  wall  give  the  dates  of  the  first  burials  in  1738. 
They  grew  and  thrived  under  a  minister  of  their  own  nationality, 
and  in  1751  another  church  was  erected  at  Addisville,  now 
Richboro,  on  the  site  of  the  chapel  which  is  said  to  include  a 
part  of  the  original  church.  With  the  erection  of  the  church  at 
the  "Bear"  the  title  was  changed  to  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church 
of  North  and  Southampton.     Both  church  buildings  had  grown 

4  Stoffel  VanSandt  had  been  successively  elder,  deacon  and  clerk  of  Van 
Vlecq  s  Church  in  1710;  of  Abington  Presbyterian  Church  of  which  he  was 
one  of  the  organizers  in  1714,  and  at  Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church  in 
Bensalem  when  it  was  revived  in  1719.  The  other  officers  mentioned  were 
also   connected   with   all   three. 


10 


DUTCH    SETTLEMENT    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 


old  and  dilapidated  by  1814,  and  the  present  church,  (at  Church- 
ville)  now  remodelled,  was  erected  to  serve  both  branches,  and 
the  old  churches  at  Feasterville  and  the  "Bear"  were  abandoned. 
Persons  now  living  recall  the  ruined  walls  of  the  old  church  on 
the  site  of  the  chapel. 

In  1858,  another  church  was  erected  at  Addisville,  across  the 
road  from  the  site  of  the  original  church  and  graveyard,  and  a 
separate  organization  was  effected  in  1864. 

Rev.  Dorsius  was  succeeded  by  Rev.  Jonathan  DuBois  in  1749, 


DUTCH  REFORMED  CHURCH,  CHURCHVILLE,   PA. 


or  rather  he  was  the  next  regular  pastor  after  an  interval  of  sup- 
plies for  four  years.  He  was  a  great-grandson  of  Louis  DuBois, 
a  native  of  Normandy,  the  pioneer  and  leader  of  the  Huguenot 
settlement  on  the  Hudson  in  1660.  Rev.  Jonathan  was  a  first 
cousin  to  the  father  of  Rev.  Uriah  DuBois  the  founder  and  first 
pastor  of  Doylestown  Presbyterian  Church.  Rev.  Jonathan  Du- 
Bois died  in  1772,  and  in  1776  Rev.  William  Schenck,  driven  from 
his  charge  at  Monmouth,  N.  J.,  by  the  British,  became  pastor. 
He  was  succeeded  in  1780,  by  Rev.  Matthew  Leydt,  who  died  in 
1783.  After  another  period  of  supplies  Rev.  Peter  Stryker  served 
as  pastor  1788-1794;  Rev.  John  Bush,  1794-1797;  Rev.  Jacob 
Larzelere,  the  first  native  pastor  served  from  1787  to  1828;  Rev. 


AN   INVESTIGATION    OF  THE   "gIANT's   GRAVE''  11 

Abram  Ootwout  Halsey.  1829-1868;  Rev.  William  DeHart,  1868- 
1871;  Rev.  H.  M.  Vorhees,  1871-1877;  Rev.  B.  C.  Lippincott, 
1871-1881  ;  Rev.  Samuel  Streng.  1882-1891 ;  Rev.  Horace  P. 
Craig,  1891-1912,  and  Rev.  Paul  J.  Strohaur,  1912-1916,  com- 
pletes the  roster  of  incumbents  to  the  present  time.  Much  of  the 
information  in  reference  to  the  later  history  I  have  gathered  from 
a  little  booklet  issued  by  the  church  consistory,  compiled  prin- 
cipally by  the  Rev.  Samuel  Streng,  a  copy  of  which  has  been  pre- 
sented to  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society. 

The  old  graveyards  at  Feasterville  and  Richboro  are  similar 
to  those  of  other  localities  and  denominations  of  early  dates. 
The  graves  of  those  who  died  prior  to  1760  are  marked  by  native 
stones,  without  inscription  in  some  cases,  but  usually  marked 
with  the  initials  of  the  deceased  and  the  year  of  their  death.  As 
above  stated  the  oldest  inscriptions  at  Feasterville  bear  the  date 
1738.  The  oldest  at  Richboro  are  1755  and  1757.  The  common 
undressed  native  stones  were  followed  by  the  dressed  red  and 
gray  sandstone,  and  they  by  the  clouded  marble,  that  preceded  the 
white  marble  of  later  dates.  A  number  of  tombstones  at  Feaster- 
ville are  of  the  greenish  slabs  from  Edge  Hill. 


An  Investigation  of  the  "Giant's  Grave." 

BY  DR.   HENRY   C.    MERCER,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Churchville  Meeting,   May   23,    1917.) 

IT  is  well  known  that  the  central  part  of  the  United  States 
from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  with  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley  on  the  west  and  the  Alleghanies  on  the  east,  is 
scattered  with  prehistoric  mounds  and  earth  works.  If  these 
were  built,  as  is  now  supposed,  by  the  ancestors  of  the  Indians 
found  in  that  region  by  the  first  white  explorers,  why  did  not  the 
same  or  similar  Indians  build  mounds,  where  none  are  found,  in 
Pennsylvania  east  of  the  Alleghanies,  or  in  New  England? 

Because  no  such  mounds  exist  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania  or  New 
Jersey,  and  because  the  prehistoric  shell  heaps  of  the  New  Jersey 
coast  are  not  properly  mounds,  it  seemed  desirable  to  investigate 
a  large  apparently  artificial  mound,  which  has  long  attracted  local 


12  AN    INVESTIGATION   OF   THE   "gIANT's   GRAVE" 

attention  in  Bucks  county,  and  which  to  the  writer's  knowledge, 
w^as  first  noticed  in  print  in  1831,  when  Samuel  Hazard  in  Haz- 
ard's Register  of  May  28th  of  that  year.  (Vol.  VH,  p.  349)  the 
same  note  appearing  later  in  Watson's  Annals  (V^ol.  H,  p.  172.) 
published  in  1842,  states  that  he  has  just  received  a  letter  from  a 
friend  signing  himself  E.  M.,  who  writing  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Doylestown  says,  "I  have  discovered  a  large  Indian  mound 
known  by  the  name  of  the  'Giant's  Grave,'  and  at  another  place 
is  an  Indian  burial  ground,  on  a  very  high  hill,  not  far  from 
Doylestown."^ 

This  so-called  Giant's  Grave,  which  the  writer  first  heard  of 
from  John  S.  Williams  about  1897.  is  situated  in  a  beautiful 
region  about  half  a  mile  south  of  Buckmanville,  in  Upper  Make- 
field  township,  close  on  the  left  of  the  road  going  toward  Jericho 
Hill,  on  property  (1917)  belonging  to  Samuel  Bassett,  since  sold 
to  John  Eastburn. 

On  measurement  I  found  the  mound  to  be  three  hundred  and 
six  feet  long,  seventy-five  wide  and  fourteen  feet  six  inches  high, 
at  its  highest  point. 

It  stands  unhidden  by  trees  in  a  basin-shaped  hollow  sur- 
rounded by  low  grassy  ridges  and  appearing  as  a  long  grave- 
shaped  rectangle,  pointing  lengthwise  nearly  east  and  west,  and 
no  less  evenly  rounded  and  clear  in  outline,  no  less  symmetrical, 
than  many  of  the  typical  earthworks  of  the  Ohio  Valley,  which 
when  seen,  strike  the  student  with  awe,  not  as  freaks  of  nature, 
but  as  the  unexplained  and  mysterious  work  of  unknown  men. 

Mr.  Bassett  said  it  had  been  plowed  about  thirty  years  ago  and 
that  fifty  years  ago  it  was  covered  with  trees  from  one  to  two 
feet  in  diameter.  I  noticed  several  holes  of  the  ground-hog  or 
wood-chuck  upon  the  mound,  and  observed  that  the  material 
excavated  by  the  animals  and  piled  near  by,  consisted  of  loose 
flat  angular  fragments  of  soft  reddish  shale. 

Having  mapped  out  the  mound  longitudinally  in  thirty-four 
outlined  areas  for  cross  trenches,  each  to  be  nine  feet  wide  when 
completed,  we  began  digging  on  August  23,  1916,  in  area  No.  16 
counting  from  the  east.  This  preliminary  trench  five  feet  wide 
advancing  toward  the  center  of  the  mound  as  it  reached  a  depth 
of  five  feet,  showed  conclusively  that  we  were  digging  into  a  long 

1  This  doubtless  refers  to  a  small  sroup  of  supposed  Indian  graves  on  the 
Trego  farm,  about  one  mile  east  of  Pineville  on  the  Windy  Bush  road. 


AN    INVESTIGATION    OF   THE   "gIANT's   GRAVe"  13 

ridge  of  stratified  shale  in  which  the  rock  floor  tilted  at  an  angle 
of  about  thirty  degrees  north  and  south.  The  outer  crust  of  this. 
and  of  the  mound  itself  to  a  depth  of  about  three  and  one-half 
to  four  feet,  had  been  rotted  and  loosened  by  frost  and  weather, 
although  the  fragments  nevertheless  retained  in  general  the 
original  position  of  their  stratification.  At  a  greater  depth  than 
four  feet,  the  fragments  merged  into  a  solid  rock,  thus  disproving 
the  possibility  of  human  construction. 

After  finishing  work  at  this  point,  we  sank  a  shaft  three  feer 
long  by  four  wide  in  the  center  of  the  mound  at  the  area  marked 
for  trench  No.  25.  The  conditions  revealed  were  the  same,  save 
that  the  solid  rock  was  reached  at  less  depth,  namely  at  about 
three  feet. 

Our  third  trench  was  opened  again  in  the  center  of  the  mound, 
in  the  area  marked  for  trench  No.  7 — as  a  rectangular  shaft  five 
feet  long  and  three  feet  wide,  where  the  hard  rock  was  reached 
at  a  still  less  depth  namely  two  feet  six  inches.  Aiter  finishing 
these  trenches,  a  comparison  of  the  surrotmding  country  showed 
similar  formations  of  shale,  rotted  near  the  surface,  which  ap- 
peared as  out-crops  along  the  neighboring  roadside,  near  a  ruined 
house  close  to  the  southwest  end  of  the  mound,  and  also  under 
the  road  bed  itself.  But  the  digging  in  our  three  trenches  finished 
that  same  day,  August  23,  had  conclusively  proved  that  the  mound 
was  a  weathered  outcrop  of  rock  and  not  the  work  of  human 
hands. 


Branding  Cattle  in  Idaho. 

BY   JOSEPH    C.    REa/   LAHASKA,    PA. 
(Churchville  Meeting-,   May   22,    1917.) 

LIKE  a  similar  specimen  from  upper  Bucks  county  in  the 
museum  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society  this  brand- 
ing iron  (a  flat  bar  of  wrought  iron  twisted  into  the  re- 
versed form  of  the  letter  R  with  an  iron  socket  to  be  inserted  into 
a  long  wooden  handle)  was  made  and  used  by  Henry  Tremmer 
Rea  on  his  cattle  ranch  in  Payette  Valley,  Idaho,  from  1860  to 
1870.  At  that  time  the  cattle  ran  wild  on  the  prairie.  Idaho  was 
then  a  territory.  We  were  three  hundred  miles  from  the  nearest 
railroad  station  and  the  Wells— Fargo  Company's  coach  was  the 
only  means  of  transportation.  This  stage  which  made  one  trip 
daily  passed  our  ranch.  The  driver  was  always  accompanied  by 
a  man  who  sat  beside  him  on  the  box  with  a  Winchester  rifle, 
while  at  his  feet  was  placed  an  iron  box  containing  gold,  shipped 
by  express  from  the  mines.  This  was  the  only  means  of  trans- 
porting the  treasure  in  those  days. 

The  original  owner  of  this  branding  iron,  while  engaged  in  the 
cattle  business,  also  raised  hay  for  the  stage  company.  The  stages 
were  drawn  by  six  horses,  and  hay  had  to  be  provided  for  them 
in  winter.  The  hay  for  that  section  was  grown  mostly  by  Henry 
Rea,  who  brought  the  first  mowing  machine  across  country,  on 
the  backs  of  mules  from  San  Francisco  into  Idaho.  There  were 
only  two  or  three  ranchers  who  raised  hay,  and  it  brought  from 
$200  to  $300  per  ton.  Many  people  here  in  the  east,  might  doubt 
this  statement,  but  they  probably  would  not  realize  what  it  meant 
then  and  there  to  feed  two  hundred  horses  at  the  different  relay 
stations  some  fifty  miles  apart  between  Salt  Lake  City,  Boise 
City  and  Portland,  Oregon. 

There  were  no  Indian  reservations  then.  The  Indians  trooped 
about  the  territory  in  bands.  This  kept  the  few  ranchers  who 
lived  in  that  section  at  that  time  alert,  as  there  were  so  many 
massacres  by  the  Indians.  Emigrants  were  then  slowly  crossing 
the  Rockies  from  the  east  to  settle  in  those  parts. 

1  This  paper  was  presented  and  read  by  Dr.  "W.  S.  Erdman,  of  Bucking- 
ham,  Pa.,  from  notes  furnished  by  Joseph  C.   Rea. 


BRANDING    CATTLE    IN    IDAHO 


15 


Henry  Tremmer  Rea,  his  parents  and  his  grandparents  were 
among  the  first  to  leave  their  homes  in  Hunterdon  county,  N.  J., 
for  the  west.  Henry  was  then  about  seven  years  old.  They 
traveled  over  the  mountains  of  Pennsylvania  with  teams,  crossing 
Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois,  the  trip  taking  some  four  months. 
They  crossed  about  the  time  the  Mormons  settled  in  Idaho,  and 


A.  Branding  instrument  of  wrought  iron  for  burning  the  letter  R  on 
cattle.  Used  in  Idaho  in  1860-70.  In  the  possession  of  Joseph  C.  Rea, 
of  Lahaska,  Bucks  County,  Penna. 

B.  "Branding  iron"  for  burning  the  letters  D.  R.  on  cattle.  Prob- 
ably used  in  upper  Bucks  County  in  the  18th  Century.  Found  in  a 
load  of  scrap  iron  by  Enos  B.  Loux.  of  Hilltown,  Bucks  County,  Penna., 
and  presented  by  him.  in  July,  1917,  to  the  Bucks  County  Historical 
Society.     Size,   11   inches  long. 


the  writer  remembers  an  old  story  told  by  his  father  of  how  he 
met  Joseph  Smith,  the  chief  of  the  Mormons,  who  gave  him  some 
religious  tracts  to  take  home  and  read.  He  was  then  thirteen 
years  of  age  and  on  his  way  home  from  school.     He  was  im- 


16  BRANDING    CATTLE    IN    KANSAS    IN   1858 

pressed  with  the  man's  handsome  appearance,  and  never  forgot 
him. 

Henry  Tremmer  Rea  married  while  in  the  west,  and  in  the 
seventies  returned  east  with  his  family.  His  son,  Joseph  Rea, 
(who  has  furnished  the  notes  for  this  paper)  when  revisiting 
the  old  ranch  in  Idaho,  brought  back  his  father's  branding  iron, 
as  a  memento  of  his  early  childhood  days. 

In  branding  cattle  they  were  driven  into  a  corral,  one  end  of 
which  led  into  a  railed  alley,  when  the  animal  reached  the  proper 
place  for  branding,  another  rail  was  placed  behind  it.  The  iron 
was  heated  and  the  animal  branded  on  its  side  by  thrusting  the 
iron  through  the  rails  of  the  pen.  The  front  rail  was  then  pulled 
out  and  the  animal  let  out  into  the  field,  and  then  another  animal 
took  its  place  in  the  branding  pen. 

The  Rea  family  is  of  Quaker  extraction ;  any  one  visiting 
Hunterdon  county.  New  Jersey,  would  still  find  a  number  of  its 
descendants  there. 


Branding  Cattle  in  Kansas  in  1858. 

BY  THADDEUS  S.   KENDERDINE,  NEWTOWN,  PA, 
(Churchville  Meeting,   May   23,    1917.) 

I  AM  one  of  the  survivors  of  that  diminishing  group  of  men 
who  crossed  the  western  plains  to  San  Francisco  by  "prairie 
schooner"  along  the  Santa  Fe  and  other  trails,  before  the  rail- 
roads were  built,  and  well  remember  helping  to  brand  a  drove  of 
five  hundred  oxen  at  Independence,  Kansas,  in  1858.  about  ten 
years  before  the  construction  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad. 

The  Mormon  rebellion  had  broken  out  and  the  Government 
was  preparing  to  transport  large  quantities  of  supplies  for  men 
and  animals  (about  eight  thousand  tons)  by  wagon  twelve  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  seat  of  war.  The  contract  had  been  undertaken 
by  the  firm  of  Russell,  Majors  &  Waddell,  of  Kansas  City, 
(afterwards  noted  as  having  defaulted  to  the  government  for  the 
embezzlement  of  Indian  trust  funds,)  who  then  proposed  to  do 
the  work  at  an  outlay  of  $2,500,000  with  four  thousand  seven 
hundred  men,  ten  thousand  mules,  four  thousand  wagons  (manu- 


BRANDING    CATTLE    IN    KANSAS    IN  1858  17 

factured  in  the  east  and  shipped  up  the  Mississippi  river)  and 
twenty-five  thousand  ox-yokes,  bows  and  chains  made  at  special 
shops  to  equip  fifty  thousand  oxen,  most  of  which  with  their 
tackle  were  almost  given  away  to  the  Mormons  on  reaching  Salt 
Lake  City  after  the  war  was  over.  These  animals  who  pulled 
most  of  the  wagons  at  an  average  rate  of  about  nine  miles  a  day 
had  to  be  branded  at  Independence,  Kansas,  before  starting. 
My  first  job  was  to  help  at  this  work,  of  which  I  soon  got  a 
severe  dose.  The  first  day  we  branded  five  hundred,  and  between 
the  unruly  beasts,  frightened  by  the  smell  of  their  burning  flesh, 
and  my  own  ofifended  nostrils  I  was  glad  when  night  came.  The 
preparations  were  a  square  pen  capable  of  holding  two  hundred 
oxen,  a  stall  at  one  corner  big  enough  for  one  ox,  with  a  gate  at 
each  end,  a  wood  fire  and  a-half-dozen  branding  irons.  The  fire 
was  just  outside  the  corral,  and  four  or  five  of  the  irons  were 
constantly  immerged  therein.  Eight  or  ten  men  were  required  to 
do  the  branding,  to  heat  and  carry,  or  "pack"  the  irons  and  steer 
the  unruly  and  frightened  oxen,  into  the  branding  stall.  Their 
lowing  and  cringing  as  the  hot  irons  seethed  their  hips,  (the  place 
for  branding)  was  about  all  I  could  stand,  but  as  I  expected  worse 
before  I  got  through  the  Indian  country,  and  as  my  bosses  were 
a  little  impatient  and  addicted  to  strong  language,  I  concluded  to 
put  up  with  my  work.  In  fact,  though  very  dififerent  from  at- 
tending boarding  school,  I  tried  to  hide  my  emotion  and  to  make 
myself  believe  that  this  was  just  the  kind  of  fun  I  was  hanker- 
ing after;  particularly,  as,  while  at  Kansas  City,  I  lost  a  job  of 
ox-driving  on  a  Santa  Fe  train  by  reason  of  taking  on  too  many 
literary  airs  with  a  wagon  master,  and  did  not  want  to  be  rebuffed 
again.  My  job  was  to  carry  branding  irons  from  the  fire  to  the 
branding  pen,  and  I  might  have  lost  my  job  from  ignorance  of 
the  Missouri  language,  when  I  was  ordered  to  "pack"  them. 
This  in  the  native  lingo  meant  "carry"  which  as  far  as  my  studies 
went  was  a  word  neither  to  be  found  in  French,  Spanish  or 
Latin,  so  that  I  was  in  some  confusion,  but  the  boss,  by  word 
and  gesture  promptly  "put  me  wise,"  and  I  soon  "packed"  the 
ox-yoke  brand  from  its  place  on  the  fire  to  the  left  hip  of  the 
ox  now  struggling  in  his  pen.  Helping  to  brand  the  five  hundred 
was  a  tough  job  for  me,  but  in  consideration  of  the  fifty  thou- 
sand which  were  branded  by  the  contracting  firm  mentioned,  it 
was  comparatively  a  light  job. 


Turnpike  Roads  in  Bucks  County. 

BY  WARREN  S.  ELY,  DOYLESTOWN,  PA. 
(Churchville  Meeting,   May   23,   1917.) 

SINCE  a  considerable  portion  of  our  program  for  this  meet- 
ing is  devoted  to  the  history  of  the  local  turnpike  roads  and 
reminiscenses  of  toll  gatherers  thereon,  it  is  well  to  devote 
a  moment  to  the  origin  of  the  name  and  a  brief  account  of  the 
first  turnpike  road  companies  incorporated  and  operated  in  our 
state  and  county. 

The  first  toll-bar  or  turn-pike,  probably  the  crude  style  referred 
to  by  Mrs.  Nichols,  a  yoeman's  pike  balanced  on  an  upright  stake 
or  post  erected  in  the  middle  of  the  highway  to  stop  travelers 
and  demand  toll,  was  authorized  by  Edward  III,  of  England  in 
1346  to  cover  the  cost  of  keeping  in  repair  the  highway  now 
known  as  Gray's  Inn  Lane,  London.  The  first  turnpike  road 
erected  by  law  in  England  was  in  1663,  three  centuries  later. 


TOLL,  HOUSE  AND  SINGLE  TOLL  GATE 

Showing  "guard  rail"  on  the  right  at  Aquetong,  formerly  Paxson's  Corner, 
on   tne  Old  York  Road    (Lahaska   and   New   Hope   Turnpike)    looking   south. 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  19 

The  system,  not  very  common  in  England  until  the  reign  of 
George  III,  never  gained  a  foothold  in  Colonial  Pennsylvania, 
the  first  turnpike  road  in  our  state  being  the  Lancaster  Pike 
chartered  in  1792.  The  elaborate  and  more  or  less  gigantic 
schemes  for  the  development  of  inland  navigation  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  eighteen  century,  which  were  to  make  the  Delaware, 
Schuylkill  and  Susquehanna  rivers  navigable  to  our  northern 
boundary  and  connect  them  by  canals,  portages  and  smaller 
streams  with  the  Ohio,  and  the  almost  as  comprehensive  system 
of  opening  roads  to  all  parts  of  the  state,  was  followed  by  the 
organization  and  chartering  by  the  legislature  of  corporations  to 
build  and  operate  "Artificial  Roads,"  over  the  main  highways  of 
the  state.  The  first  of  these,  as  above  stated,  was  that  from 
Lancaster  to  Philadelphia.  Between  the  years  1792  and  1828, 
one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  of  these  companies  were  incorporated 
and  two  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eighty  miles  of  turnpike 
roads  were  put  into  operation,  and  "the  whole  surface  of  the 
state  was  traversed  with  the  numerous  turnpikes  which  extended 
their  branches  to  the  remotest  districts"  says  a  correspondent  in 
Hazard's  Register  of  June,  1828,  (Vol.  I,  p.  407). ^ 

And  he  adds,  "None  of  them  have  yielded  dividends  sufficient 
to  remunerate  their  proprietors ;  most  of  them  have  yielded  little 
more  than  has  been  expended  on  their  repairs ;  and  some  of  them 
have  not  yielded  tolls  sufficient  even  for  that  purpose  and  conse- 
quently in  some  cases  have  been  abandoned  by  their  proprietors." 

Bucks  county  relying  on  the  improvement  of  navigation  in  the 
Delaware,  already  eflfective  by  the  use  of  the  flat-bottomed  Dur- 
ham boats  along  her  entire  frontage,  and  by  larger  freight-carry- 
ing vessels  over  the  lower  half  thereof,  was  not  as  active  as  some 
other  parts  of  the  state  in  building  these  artificial  roads.  The 
first  turnpike  road  to  extend  through  our  county  was  the  Frank- 
ford  and  Bristol,  from  Front  street  and  Germantown  road,  Phila- 
delphia to  the  ferry  at  Morrisville,  organized  by  act  of  assembly 
of  March  24,  1803,  the  charter  being  issued  May  13,  1803.  On 
the  same  day  an  act  was  passed  to  organize  Cheltenham  and  Wil- 
low Grove  Turnpike  Road  Company,  the  road  terminating  at 
Willow  Grove,  outside  our  county,  from  whence  it  was  extended 
to  Doylestown  in  1838  and  up  the  Yord  Road  a  decade  later. 

1  See  list  of  turnpikes  authorized  chartered  with  other  statistics  relating  to 
same,  Hazard  s  Register  of  Pennsylvania,  Vol.  II,  pp.   293  and  299. 


20  TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

The  second  turnpike  road  to  enter  our  county  was  the  Bustle- 
ton  &  Smithfield,  from  the  "Rock"  at  Oxford  to  the  "Buck"  in 
Southampton,  chartered  May  1,  1804.  It  was  extended  through 
Churchville  to  the  "Bear"  at  Richboro  and  finally  to  Pineville 
as  referred  to  by  Mr.  Kirk  in  his  History  of  the  Turnpike  Road 
from  Buckingham  to  Newtown.  The  Chestnut  Hill  and  Spring 
House  Turnpike  Road  was  chartered  March  27,  1804,  and  in 
1805,  an  act  was  passed  to  extend  it  over  the  Bethlehem  Road 
through  Upper  Bucks,  and  in  1806  an  act  for  another  branch 
from  Trewig's  Tavern  (Line  Lexington)  through  Sellersville, 
Quakertown  and  Coopersburg  to  Northampton  Town,  now  Allen- 
town,  but  no  charter  was  issued  for  either  until  authorized  by 
another  act  in  1813.  From  this  date  until  about  1838  there  was 
little  activity  in  building  of  turnpike  roads,  but  about  the  latter 
date  interest  in  them  revived  and  toll  roads  were  built  in  many 
parts  of  the  county  between  1838  and  the  opening  of  the  Civil 
war. 

Turnpike  Road  from  Buckingham  to  Newton. 
BY  EDWARD  R.   KIRK,  WYCOMBE,  PA. 

The  distance  between  Buckingham  (formerly  Centreville)  and 
Newtown  was  originally  covered  by  three  turnpike  roads,  which 
I  will  describe  in  their  regular  order,  commencing  at  Buckingham. 

CENTREVILLE  AND   PINEVILLE  TURNPIKE   ROAD. 

On  or  about  October  1,  1858,  a  number  of  citizens  of  Buck- 
ingham township,  met  at  Corson's  tavern  in  the  village  of  Cen- 
treville to  consider  the  possibility  of  constructing  a  turnpike  road 
from  Centreville  to  Pineville.  There  were  present  at  that  meet- 
ing, Charles  B.  Ely,  Stephen  K.  Betts,  Emmor  Walton,  J.  Wilson 
Kirk,  Isaac  C.  Kirk,  Andrew  Craven,  J.  Watson  Case,  John  W, 
Gilbert,  Amos  W.  Kirk,  William  T.  Rogers,  Jonathan  Mathews, 
James  C.  Iden,  Hiram  Rice  and  others. 

The  necessity  of  a  turnpike  road  was  fully  discussed,  and  it 
was  decided  to  make  application  for  a  charter  in  the  name  of  the 
"Centreville  &  Pineville  Turnpike  Road  Company,"  and  that  the 
road  should  be  capitalized  at  $10,000,  divided  into  four  hundred 
shares  of  stock  at  $25  each.     It  was  also  decided  that  the  rate  of 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  21 

tolls  to  be  charged  should  be  the  same  as  those  in  the  charter 
granted  to  the  Somerton  &  Bustleton  Turnpike  Road  Company. 
The  charter  was  granted  on  April  8,  1859.  The  first  meeting 
of  the  board  of  directors  was  held  August  15,  1859,  when  the 
following  officers  were  selected :  William  T.  Rogers,  president ; 
James  C.  Iden,  treasurer;  J.  Watson  Case,  secretary;  Charles 
B.  Ely,  Jonathan  Mathews,  J.  Wilson  Kirk,  Stephen  K.  Betts, 
J.  Watson  Case,  Andrew  Craven  and  Stephen  S.  Kirk,  directors. 
At  the  same  meeting  it  was  decided  that  the  road  should  be  laid 
out  forty  feet  in  width,  with  a  stone  bed  of  eighteen  feet,  and  a 
summer  road  on  one  side.  Plans  and  specifications  for  the  build- 
ing of  the  road  were  drawn  and  seven  contractors  furnished  bids 
for  its  construction  ranging  in  price  from  $1,800  to  $3,000  per 
mile.  James  Gowan  was  the  successful  bidder  and  took  the  con- 
tract at  $1,800  per  mile.  The  entire  cost  of  the  completed  road 
was  nearly  $12,000  with  land,  road-bed  and  toll-house.  This  was 
about  $2,000  more  than  the  paid  up  capital  stock,  but  the  in- 
debtedness was  gradually  paid  ofif,  later  one  hundred  and  sixty 
shares  were  bought  in  by  the  company  and  cancelled,  thereby 
reducing  the  capital  stock  to  $6,000.  John  K.  Trego  furnished 
two  chestnut  poles  for  arms  or  gates  to  be  swung  across  the  road 
horizontally  for  the  gate  at  the  base  of  Buckingham  mountain. 
These  two  poles  or  gates  were  in  continuous  use  from  the  time 
the  road  was  opened  until  it  was  taken  over  by  the  State  High- 
way Department,  and  were  then,  at  the  solicitation  of  your  presi- 
dent, Dr.  Mercer  deposited  in  the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society.  These  gates  had  to  be  swung  around  by  the 
toll-gatherer  to  open  and  close  them.  The  gates  used  later  at 
the  other  toll-houses  were  more  modern  in  construction,  consist- 
ing of  a  vertical  bar  with  a  counterbalance,  and  could  be  operated 
by  the  gate  keeper  without  his  having  to  cross  the  road. 

Oliver  Heath^  was  appointed  the  first  toll-gatherer  at  a  salary 
of  five  dollars  and  a  half  per  month  with  free  use  of  house  and 
a  lot  of  land  belonging  to  the  company.  The  company  com- 
menced to  collect  toll  on  September  1,  1860.  On  December  4, 
1860,  a  committee  of  investigation  recommended  that  the  gate 
should  always  be  kept  closed  during  meal  time  and  also  during 

1  Oliver  Heath  was  for  .several  years  toll-gatherer  at  the  Buckingham  gate 
on  the  Doylestovvn  &   Lahaska   turnpike. 


22  TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

the  night.    During  the  period  of  fifty-seven  years  of  its  existence 
the  company  had  but  nine  gate-keepers. 

The  minutes  and  proceedings  of  a  number  of  meetings  of  the 
board  show  that  it  was  an  ordinary  occurence  to  have  orders 
passed  in  favor  of  the  treasurer  for  counterfeit  money  received 
for  tolls.     At  one  meeting  this  amounted  to  $12.50  for  one  year. 

RICHBORO  AND   PINEVILLE   TURNPIKE    ROAD. 

The  company  building  that  portion  of  the  road  from  Pineville 
to  the  Anchor  tavern  was  chartered  under  the  name  of  the  "Rich- 
boro  &  Pineville  Turnpike  Road  Company."  At  a  meeting  of 
those  interested  in  the  project  held  at  the  Anchor  tavern  the  fol- 
lowing resolution  was  passed :  "Many  of  the  inhabitants  living 
contiguous  to  the  road  leading  to  Pineville,  Plennsville  and  Rich- 
borough  were  strongly  impressed  that  an  artificial  turnpike  road 
is  much  wanted  to  accommodate  the  traveling  community."  A 
petition  was  accordingly  signed  and  a  charter  secured  on  August 
8,  1848,  eleven  years  before  the  charter  was  granted  for  the 
road  from  Centreville  to  Pineville.  The  first  officers  chosen 
were  Samuel  Atkinson,  president,  and  Thomas  Warner,  secre- 
tary. The  contract  for  this  road  was  let  to  Robert  Scarlet  at 
$2,309.67  per  mile.  After  fifty  years  of  operation  it  was  not  a 
financial  success  and  the  company  decided,  at  a  meeting  held 
June  4,  1902,  to  discontinue  it  and  its  charter  was  accordingly 
surrendered.  On  April  24,  1902,  an  application  was  made  to 
have  the  charter  of  the  Wrightown  &  Newtown  turnpike  road 
extended  so  as  to  include  that  portion  of  the  road  from  the  An- 
chor tavern  to  Pineville.  Edward  Tomlinson  was  appointed  toll- 
gatherer  and  continued  in  that  capacity  from  1902  to  April  1, 
1917. 

WRIGHTSTOWN  AND   NEWTOWN   TURNPIKE   ROAD. 

A  number  of  the  citizens  of  Wrightstown  and  vicinity  being 
desirous  of  having  a  turnpike  road  from  the  Anchor  to  New- 
town held  a  meeting  at  the  Anchor  tavern  at  which  it  was  decided 
to  present  a  petition  to  the  legislature  for  a  charter.  The  resi- 
dents of  the  townships  of  Wrightstown  and  Newtown  took  a  keen 
interest  in  this  project,  as  is  indicated  by  the  number  that  at- 
tended the  public  meetings  that  were  held.    At  one  meeting  there 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IX    BUCKS    COUNTY  23 

were  present  fifty  prominent  residents  from  the  two  townships. 
The  charter  was  granted  April  12,  1867. 

At  a  meeting  for  organization  held  at  the  Anchor  tavern  July 
6,  1867,  George  Warner  was  elected  president;  Isaac  Hillborn, 
secretary,  Charles  Thompson,  treasurer,  and  Thomas  Warner, 
Charles  L.  Twining,  George  Price,  James  Stinson,  Charles 
Thompson  and  William  B.  Warner,  directors.  The  contract  for 
building  the  road  was  let  to  Isaac  Hillborn  for  $3,990  per  mile. 
The  contractor  to  accept  in  part  payment  one  hundred  and  sixty 
shares  of  the  capital  stock  at  $25,  per  share.  The  road  was  com- 
pleted January  21,  1780,  and  William  Spencer  Gore  was  appointed 
toll-gatherer  at  the  ^^'rightstown  gate  and  Edward  Dillon  at  the 
Newtown  gate,  each  to  receive  ten  dollars  per  month  and  free 
house  rent  for  his  service.  Mr.  Gore  was  a  cripple  and  he  and 
his  wife,  Harriet  Gore,  continued  as  toll-gatherers  at  the  Wrights- 
town  gate  until  April  24,  1900,  a  period  of  thirty  years.  Both  of 
them  were  always  faithful  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties. 

On  November  7,  1881,  the  first  dividend  of  five  per  cent  was 
declared.  Unfortunately  for  the  stockholders  this  company  was 
not  a  financial  success.  From  the  date  of  organization  until  it 
was  purchased  by  the  State  Highway  Department,  it  paid  its 
stockholders  an  average  dividend  of  but  one  and  six-tenths  per 
cent  per  annum.  The  stockholders  of  the  Centreville  &  Pine- 
ville  Turnpike  Road  Company  were  more  fortunate,  they  received 
an  average  of  five  and  four-tenths  per  cent  per  annum  from  the 
time  the  road  was  opened  until  April  1,  1917. 

An  explanation  of  the  low  cost  of  constructing  these  turnpike 
roads,  is  the  fact  that  the  stone  was  furnished  by  the  parties  in- 
terested in  their  construction  at  a  minimum  cost.  The  price  of 
labor  ranged  from  sixty-two  and  one-half  cents  to  one  dollar  per 
day.  The  stones  were  all  broken  by  hand  hammers.  All  char- 
ters required  that  the  stones  be  broken  so  as  to  be  not  larger 
than  two  inches  for  top  dressing. 

From  the  time  that  the  roads  were  first  opened  the  position  of 
toll-gatherer  seemed  to  be  in  demand,  as  in  nearly  every  case  of 
a  vacancy  there  were  at  least  half-a-dozen  applicants.  In  a 
number  of  cases  the  toll-gatherers  were  sworn  to  do  their  duty 
faithfully  and  honestly. 

The  turnpike  roads  have  fulfilled  their  mission  and  will  soon 


24  TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

be  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  these  roads,  together  with  the  roads 
leading  from  Doylestown  to  New  Hope,  which  were  freed  from 
tolls  on  May  1,  and  May  7,  1917,  respectively,  witnessed  the  pass- 
ing out  of  existence,  with  two  or  three  exceptions  of  the  toll 
roads  system  of  Bucks  county. 

Reminiscences  of  Toll  Gates  and  Toll  Gatherers  on  Turnpike  Roads. 

BY    HENRY   W.    GROSS,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 

The  toll  houses  along  our  turnpike  roads  were  not  large  and 
had  no  modern  conveniences,  but  they  were  comfortable  homes 
for  the  toll-gatherers.  The  occupants  were  not  rich  in  this  world's 
goods,  but  presumably  honest  and  faithful  to  their  trusts,  some  of 
them  were  at  times  a  little  over  zealous  and  apparently  exacting. 

The  minute-book  of  one  company  records  that  if  any  gate- 
keeper intentionally  over  collects  he  is  to  forfeit  ten  dollars  which 
is  to  be  given  to  the  poor  of  the  township  (Plumstead)  and  the 
same  minute-book  says  that  if  a  person  passes  through  the  gate 
and  intentionally  fails  to  pay  the  regular  toll  he  shall  be  fined 
five  dollars  or  but  half  as  much  as  the  ofifending  gate-keeper  for- 
feits.   This  does  not  appear  to  be  quite  fair. 

In  1850  certain  tariiTs  were  Ij^  cents  and  2^  cents  showing 
that  the  half -cent  was  in  use  at  that  time.  The  toll  for  two  oxen 
was  the  same  as  for  one  horse.  Stones  were  delivered  for  25 
cents  a  perch ;  and  70  cents  a  day  was  paid  for  labor. 

A  party  driving  a  four-horse  team  several  times  weekly,  over 
a  newly  constructed  turnpike  positively  refused  to  pay  toll.  On 
one  of  his  regular  trips  the  board  of  managers  were  at  the  gate 
which  he  expected  to  pass  through  and  he  found  the  gate  closed. 
This  so  angered  him  that  he  unhitched  his  lead  horses  with  the 
intention  of  hitching  them  to  the  gate  and  pulling  it  down.  He 
had  his  black-snake  whip  with  him,  no  doubt  intending  to  use  it 
either  on  his  horses  or  on  the  managers  if  need  be,  but  wiser 
counsel  prevailed,  the  gate  was  not  pulled  down  but  the  toll  was 
paid.    This  happened  in  Plumstead  township  about  1849. 

One  gate-keeper  says,  that  the  toll-house  was  the  best  home 
that  he  ever  had,  although  he  had  several  dwellings  of  his  own 
later.  His  wife  attended  to  collecting  the  toll  in  the  day  time 
while  he  worked  at  his  trade.  He  had  no  rent  to  pay  and  re- 
ceived $6.50  in  money  per  month. 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  25 

Those  going  to  or  from  funerals  were  as  a  rule,  exempt  from 
paying  toll,  and  so  too  were  those  going  to  or  from  church ;  at 
times  they  were  required  to  name  the  particular  church  where 
they  intended  to  worship. 

Apparently  most  persons  are  inclined  to  do  what  is  right  and 
try  to  be  fair  and  honest,  demanding  only  what  is  right,  but 
there  are  some  exceptions  to  this  rule,  some  who  drop  behind  in 
the  estimation  of  their  fellow  men,  and  no  doubt  often  in  their 
own  estimation.  This  is  nowhere  more  in  evidence  than  in  little 
transactions  where  a  very  little  money  is  at  stake. 

In  Hilltown  township,  some  years  ago,  a  positive  and  some- 
M^hat  irritable  character  had  charge  of  a  gate,  a  man  of  the  same 
disposition  came  along  and  a  wrangle  about  the  toll  followed,  he 
threatened  to  cut  down  the  gate  with  a  nearby  axe,  the  gate- 
keeper was  equally  sure  that  he  would  knock  him  down  with  a 
crutch. 

One  day  about  thirty  years  ago  John  came  down  the  "Hocker- 
town"  turnpike  with  a  light  wagon  and  two  horses.  Five  cents 
toll  was  demanded  of  him.  He  refused  to  pay,  and  said  it  was 
too  much,  that  he  would  sooner  pay  five  dollars  than  five  cents, 
and  moved  on.  Later  he  appeared  before  a  justice  of  the  peace, 
paid  his  fine  and  costs  and  no  doubt  became  a  wiser  man. 

A  new  toll  gate-keeper  soon  noticed  that  a  certain  man  was  in 
the  habit  of  passing  through  the  gate  without  stopping,  he  fre- 
quently stopped,  however,  at  the  hotel  near  by,  therefore  "once 
upon  a  time"  the  gate-keeper  stopped  him  and  demanded  toll,  he 
replied  that  he  "had  not  been  in  the  habit  of  paying  toll  in  that 
way,  but  at  times  treated  the  gate-keeper  at  the  hotel  across  the 
way."  The  gate-keeper  replied  "If  I  want  whisky  I  will  pay  for 
it  myself  and  you  must  pay  your  toll."  Knowing  the  make-up 
of  the  gate-keeper,  I  have  no  doubt  that  both  suggestions  were 
carried  out  to  the  letter. 

I  have  often  wondered  why  so  many  persons  do  not  have  the 
ready  change,  or  at  least  have  their  money  within  ready  reach 
with  which  to  pay  their  toll,  but  in  the  coldest  weather  throw  back 
lap-robes  so  as  to  be  able  to  reach  some  inside  pocket  for  their 
money;  a.lso  why  the  gate-keepers  so  seldom  carry  change,  but 
trot  back  in  the  house  to  get  it  thus  making  two  trips  to  collect 
one  toll,  and  keep  the  traveler  waiting. 


26  TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

Sam  was  a  very  slow  mover,  hard  to  awaken  at  night  when 
taking  his  "cat-naps,"  Dan  wanted  to  go  through  his  gate  and 
called  "Hello !  Sam"  the  response  "Yep"  came  back  but  no  Sam. 
Dan's  voice  was  stronger  a  second  time  he  called,  and  the  third 
time  the  "hills  shook."  This  had  the  desired  effect  but  angered 
Sam  who  retorted.  "Halt  du  der  maul."  (You  keep  still.)  This 
Sam  had  the  reputation  of  not  being  a  model  husband.  Philip 
came  along  one  day  and  while  paying  his  toll  and  waiting  for 
his  change  took  occasion  to  reprimand  Sam,  who  replied :  "Du 
must  some  brandy  wine  gedrunken  habe."  (You  must  have  been 
drinking  some  brandy.) 

A  farmer  friend  of  mine  now  over  eighty  years  old,  went  to 
Philadelphia  market  with  his  products  quite  frequently  during 
the  winter  months,  as  many  other  farmers  did  fifty  years  ago. 
On  one  occasion  he  started  shortly  after  midnight,  and  at  the  first 
toll-gate  he  handed  out  a  one  dollar  bill  and  received  what  he 
thought  was  the  correct  change,  but  later  discovered  that  one  of 
the  coins  which  he  thought  was  a  dime  was  a  three-cent  piece. 
On  his  home  trip  he  handed  the  three-cent  piece  to  the  keeper, 
and  asked  for  a  dime  to  correct  the  mistake,  but  the  gate-keeper 
replied  "impossible,  I  gave  you  the  correct  change  and  this  three- 
cent  piece  was  doubtless  stuck  between  the  two  dimes  I  gave  you." 
He  took  the  three-cent  piece  and  kept  it.  The  farmer  drove  on, 
and  told  me  that  he  could  not  help  being  amused  at  being  trapped 
in  that  way. 

Tollgates  have  been  a  hindrance  to  travelers,  and  now  in  the 
days  of  automobiles  and  other  modes  of  more  speedy  travel  they 
have  proved  a  disturbing  factor  upon  the  moral  attitude  of  the 
public,  as  to  what  may  or  may  not  be  right  or  wrong  in  the  pay- 
ment or  non-payment  of  tolls,  with  the  result  that  it  has  kept 
the  gate-keeper  and  a  certain  part  of  the  traveling  public  busy 
to  match  each  other.  The  Mechanicsville  road  leading  off  from 
the  Buckingham  and  Doylestown  turnpike,  a  short  distance  be- 
yond Pool's  Corner,  has  been  made  the  "scape-goat"  by  many 
who  are  candidates  for  the  "Annanias  Club,"  by  reason  of  not 
telling  the  truth  as  to  the  route  they  traveled.  At  the  Fountain- 
ville  gate  and  also  at  the  Turk  gate  some  practices  do  not  con- 
form to  the  golden  rule,  but  it  may  be  charitable  to  know  that 
many  of  the  offenders  do  not  reside  in  that  immediate  neighbor- 
hood. 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  27 

A  youthful  gate-keeper  said :     "Air.   H .   went  through 

with  his  car  as  if  the  devil  was  after  him,  he  had  no  time  to 
stop  and  pay  toll."  When  cars  are  speeding,  the  air  becomes 
filled  with  dust  and  the  license  numbers  are  apt  to  become  dirty 
and  not  readable,  and  the  cars  soon  drive  out  of  sight.  To  over- 
come this  fraud  a  turnpike  company  in  the  upper  end  of  our 
county,  oiled  the  turnpike  for  several  hundred  yards  with  the  re- 
sult that  there  was  no  dust  and  the  numbers  could  be  read. 

Two  cars  were  waiting  at  a  toll-gate  about  two  hours  after  sun- 
set for  the  gate  to  be  opened.  Toll  was  collected  from  the  first 
car  which  then  drove  through  the  gate,  whereupon  the  second 
car  put  out  its  lights  and  quickly  followed  after  car  number  one, 
without  paying  toll.  Three  cars  were  standing  in  line  waiting 
for  the  gate  to  be  opened  but  before  opening  it  the  toll  collector 
passed  from  car  to  car  and  collected  the  toll,  he  then  opened  the 
gate  and  allowed  all  three  to  pass.  The  boys  called  him  "a  wise 
old  guy."  To  stop  an  oiTender,  a  prevaricator,  the  gate-keeper 
smashed  in  the  wind-shield  and  glass  of  a  car,  a  lawsuit,  with 
lawyers  fees  and  court  costs  resulted.  It  has  been  said  that 
"all  men  have  their  price,"  while  I  do  not  believe  that  is  true,  it 
does  seem  as  if  the  price  of  some  is  very  cheap.  Many  travelers, 
who  would  not  think  of  taking  what  does  not  belong  to  them, 
seem  to  think  it  is  smart  to  take  advantage  of  a  toll-gatherer,  or 
to  use  over  again  a  railroad  ticket  that  the  conductor  has  neg- 
lected to  punch. 

There  is,  however,  a  better  side  to  the  majority  of  the  travel- 
ing public.  Mrs.  Smith  says  some  automobile  tourists  who  hurry 
through  the  gate  on  an  outward  trip,  to  return  weeks  or  months 
later  stop  and  pay  for  both  ways  on  their  return. 

Some  years  ago  a  large  boy  gave  a  gate-keeper  a  one-dollar 
bill  to  be  changed ;  the  gate-keeper  was  somewhat  dull  and  absent- 
minded  and  gave  him  change  for  $5.  When  later  he  discovered 
a  shortage  in  his  account  of  $4,  he  was  not  able  to  trace  his  mis- 
take. Some  years  later,  after  having  left  the  toll-house  and  living 
elsewhere,  a  sturdy  young  man  appeared  at  his  door,  called  him 
out,  and  returned  the  overpaid  $4,  saying  that  the  occurrence 
had  given  him  much  uneasiness.  The  veteran  gate-keeper  has 
never  made  the  young  man's  name  public. 

Dr.  Frank  Swartzlander  gave  what  he  thought  was  a  nickel  for 


28  TURNPIKE  ROADS  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

passing  through  a  toll-gate,  the  following  week  the  doctor  passed 
through  the  same  gate  again.  The  gate-keeper  (James  Gentle- 
man, Sr.)  explained  that  a  mistake  had  occurred,  and  that  he  had 
given  him  a  $5  gold  piece,  which  he  then  returned. 

For  twenty-eight  consecutive  years  Israel  Keller,  now  ninety- 
one  years  old,  was  toll-gate  keeper  at  the  Cross  Keys  on  the 
Doylestown  and  Danboro  Turnpike  road.  Oliver  Smith  has  held 
a  similar  position  sixteen  years  on  the  Doylestown  and  Dublin 
Turnpike  and  Miss  Ada  A.  Layman,  thirteen  years  at  the  Turk, 
on  the  Doylestown  and  Willow  Grove  Turnpike  road. 

Deputy  State  Highway  Commissioner  Joseph  W.  Hunter,  was 
one  of  the  last  persons  to  pay  toll  on  the  Buckingham  and  Doyles- 
town Turnpike  road,  recently  freed.  Lewis  Fonash,  of  Doyles- 
town, passed  through  the  gate  only  a  few  minutes  before  the 
road  was  declared  free,  and  his  name  goes  down  to  history  as 
being  the  last  to  pay  toll  on  that  road,  two  cents,  on  May  7,  1917, 
at  3  :45  p.  m. 

And  to  a  plump,  ruddy-faced  little  girl,  only  six  years  old, 
Mildred,  daughter  of  James  and  Clara  Gentleman,  belongs  the 
honor  of  standing  near  the  gate,  quite  elated,  with  her  blue  eyes 
fairly  dancing,  as  she  in  a  strong,  clear  and  melodious  voice, 
announced  the  welcome  news  to  every  passer-by — "Free  Toll ! 
Free  Toll !    You  don't  have  to  pay  toll." 

BY  WILLIAM   S.  ERDMAN,   M.D.,  BUCKINGHAM,  PA. 

Early  reminiscenses  of  toll-roads  seem  almost  to  have  passed 
away  with  the  old  gate-keepers  themselves,  but  I  have  been  able 
to  gather  a  few  together,  some  from  personal  experience,  some 
as  the  experiences  of  friends,  and  others  were  handed  down. 

My  profession  has  been  one  largely  of  the  toll-road,  as  I  have 
always  lived  in  upper  and  central  Bucks  county,  a  region  which 
has  been,  until  very  recently,  much  dotted  with  toll-gates.  I 
have  known  rather  intimately  some  of  the  oldest  gate-keepers  in 
this  county,  among  whom  I  found  many  unique  characters,  who 
with  few  exceptions  were  of  the  old  school.  One  of  my  first 
experiences  was  that  of  having  the  pleasure  and  experience  of 
riding  occasionally  with  turnpike  directors  who  on  arriving  at  a 
gate  would  simply  call  out  their  names — Atkinson,  Broadhurst, 
Large  or  Kirk  as  the  case  might  be  and  then  drive  on.     At  one 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  29 

time  at  our  Buckingham  gate  there  resided  one  OHver  Heath, 
during  whose  service  there  was  being  held  in  the  village  a  series 
of  temperance  meetings.  The  speakers  for  these  occasions  were 
being  entertained  at  the  homes  of  some  of  the  aforesaid  direc- 
tors, and  in  passing  through  the  gate  to  and  from  the  meetings 
these  hospitable  gentlemen  would  call  out  "all  right  Oliver."  A 
temperance  speaker  referred  to  this  from  the  platform  and  asked 
his  audience  to  help  him  solve  the  question  how  "all  right  Oliver" 
paid  the  toll.  Another  amusing  feature  of  the  system  was  the 
fact  that  gate-keepers  were,of  course,  obliged  to  take  the  travel- 
ers' word  as  to  their  starting  point  and  destination  and  it  was 
the  rule  that  they  always  "came  on  the  pike  at  the  cross  roads," 
just  above  or  below.  On  one  occasion  in  driving  along  the  pike 
in  upper  Bucks  county^  the  toll-gate  was  just  at  a  point  where 
the  road  made  a  sharp  turn,  I  failed  to  drive  close  enough  for  the 
old  lady  to  reach  the  money  and  she  resorted  to  a  little  tin  box 
at  the  end  of  a  long  pole,  I  dropped  the  dime  (the  toll  was  a 
nickle)  and  waited  for  my  change,  but  she  disappeared  in  the 
little  door  and  said  "if  you  want  the  change  come  in  after  it." 
I  drove  on,  but  a  few  days  later  had  occasion  to  pass  the  same 
gate  again,  I  halted  politely  and  said  "my  toll  is  paid,"  she  said, 
"yes,  sir,"  and  I  again  drove  on.  Some  few  years  ago,  two 
George  School  students  failed  to  pay  their  toll,  while  riding  their 
bicycles  through  a  gate,  whereupon  the  toll-gatherer  promptly 
mounted  his  bicycle  and  chased  after  them  to  Newtown,  a  dis- 
tance of  some  sixteen  miles.  This  same  official  charged  me  12 
cents  going  and  25  cents  returning  in  the  same  car  and  with  the 
same  number  of  people,  I  paid  it  promptly,  having  heard  but  a 
few  days  before  that  he  resorted  to  his  gun  and  threatened  to 
blow  up  a  tire  when  a  woman  protested  at  the  exorbitant  rate. 
Running  past  toll-gates  was  a  frequent  occurence  which  often 
proved  disastrous  to  both  car  and  gate. 

One  quite  exciting  incident  was  related  to  me  about  a  gate- 
keeper, quite  aged  and  with  a  long  flowing  beard,  who  was  at 
his  post  of  duty  one  night,  when  a  crowd  of  young  ruffians  came 
along  driving  a  fast  horse,  the  old  man  asked  for  the  toll,  one  of 
the  fellows  seized  him  by  his  long  white  whiskers  and  dragged 
him  some   distance   before   letting  him   go.     One  popular  gate- 

1  There  have  never  been  any  toll  roads  in  the  northeastern  end  of  Bucks 
county. 


30  TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

keeper  was  an  old  lady  of  the  "fence  hanging"  variety,  whose 
one  pleasure  in  life  was  gossiping  with  her  neighbors.  Not  wish- 
ing to  run  back  so  often  to  collect  the  toll,  she  would  call  out, 
"pay  at  the  next  gate." 

A  year  or  two  ago  while  driving  down  the  Old  York  road,  I 
handed  one  of  the  gate-keepers  a  one-dollar  bill  saying  "take  out 
for  both  ways,"  he  handed  me  back  the  change  which  I  did  not 
count,  but  drove  on  hurriedly  as  I  had  an  appointment  to  meet; 
on  returning  I  drove  through  the  gate  and  in  a  day  or  two 
learned  that  he  had  lodged  a  complaint  against  me,  for  running 
past  the  gate;  happily  I  had  a  good  friend  who  was  director  of 
that  turnpike  and  an  explanation  sufficed. 

This  sort  of  thing  was  not  always  pleasant  for  the  gate-keep- 
er's point  of  view  as  it  caused  complaints  and  fault-finding  to  be 
lodged  against  him  from  the  traveling  public.  Sometimes  auto- 
mobiles were  ofi^ered  for  toll  charges,  many  such  slurs  and  sar- 
castic remarks  were  cast  upon  the  antiquated  system.  Now,  hap- 
pily, toll-gates  are  fast  disappearing  and  soon  all  things  pertaining 
to  toll-roads  will  be  reminiscenses  only. 

BY   FRANK   K.   SWAIN,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 

Several  boys  living  at  Spring  Valley  and  returning  from 
Doylestown  late  at  night,  used  to  find  the  Pool's  Corner  tollgate 
closed,  and  were  unwillingly  obliged  to  crawl  under  it.  The 
gate-keeper  was  not  bound  to  open  the  gate  for  pedestrians,  so 
the  boys  would  form  in  a  line  a  few  feet  apart,  and  as  each  one 
passed  under  he  would  jiggle  the  gate  so  the  end  resting  loosely 
on  a  post  against  the  house,  would  make  a  loud  rattling  noise. 
By  the  time  seven  or  eight  of  the  boys  had  passed  under,  the  old 
keeper,  mad  as  a  hornet,  would  rush  out  and  shout  out  threats 
as  long  as  the  boys  were  able  to  hear. 

Aaron  Carver,  the  old  gate-keeper  at  the  Centre ville  gate, 
prided  himself  on  not  letting  any  one  slip  through  without  paying 
toll  and  was  generally  on  hand  when  a  driver  stopped  or  came 
near  the  gate.  Olie  time  two  men  in  a  buggy  drove  through  with- 
out looking  either  to  the  right  or  left,  just  as  if  there  was  no 
gate  there,  and  nearly  drove  over  the  writer  who  supposed  they 
would  stop.  The  keeper,  with  long  grey  hair  and  flowing  beard, 
rushed  out  in  a  great  rage  and  shook  his  fists  after  the  team  fast 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  31 

disappearing  out  the  New  Hope  pike.  This  badly  frightened  the 
writer,  then  a  very  small  boy,  who  was  coming  in  the  opposite 
direction,  as  he  shouted  "twice  you've  done  it,  I'll  have  you  yet." 
He  had  cold  grey  eyes  and  generally  closed  the  left  one  when 
talking  to  you.  and  the  other  one  seemed  to  pierce  you  through 
and  through,  making  one  feel  as  if  he  had  committed  some 
crime,  and  that  he  was  able  to  read  your  guilt  in  your  eyes.  He 
closed  the  gate  the  moment  Gypsies  came  in  sight  and  would 
not  open  it  until  the  last  cent  had  been  collected. 

At  a  toll-gate  below  Hatboro  on  the  Old  York  road,  on  a  cool 
snappy  morning  in  September,  three  large  touring  cars  going 
north  rushed  through  the  gate  just  as  we  rode  up.  A  pleasant 
old  lady,  much  excited,  came  running  out  and  crying :  "Oh  my ! 
oh  my !  its  highway  robbery,  its  just  plain  stealing."  I  asked  her, 
"What  is,  lifting  this  enormous  toll  from  motorists  at  six  in  the 
morn?"  She  replied,  "Oh  no,  they  all  rush  right  through  and 
don't  pay  a  cent,  just  as  those  three  large  cars  did,  and  they  go  so 
fast  I  cannot  turn  around  in  time  to  see  them,  oh  my!  its  just 
plain  stealing,  that's  what  it  is." 

At  a  toll-gate  on  the  Point  Pleasant  pike  on  a  hot  April  day 
one  of  the  carriage  horses  somewhat  fagged  out  and  glad  to 
stop  at  the  toll-gate,  an  old  lady,  wife  of  the  gate-keeper,  came 
out  to  collect  the  toll  of  Mr.  Henry  C.  Mercer,  who  thought  she 
charged  him  one  cent  more  than  the  usual  rate.  There  was  an 
argument  for  some  time.  At  first  she  seemed  frightened  but 
later  got  so  mad  that  Napoleon's  whole  army  could  not  have 
made  her  change  her  mind,  so  the  cent  was  handed  over  to  her. 
Just  as  we  started  to  drive  away,  Mr.  Mercer,  thinking  of  the 
horse,  asked  if  we  might  have  a  bucket  to  water  him  with.  Here 
she  scored  again.  "No,  damned  if  you  may,  after  that  fuss  over 
a  cent,  go  to  a  hotel  and  spend  a  nickel,"  she  shouted  as  she 
stepped  in  the  house  and  slammed  the  door. 

Most  of  the  toll-gates  were  thrown  open  at  ten  o'clock  at  night 
because  it  would  not  pay  the  turnpike  company  to  hire  an  extra 
man  to  collect  toll  after  that  hour.  H  the  keeper  chose  to  stay 
up  after  that  time  and  collect  toll  he  could  do  so  at  his  own 
profit ;  in  that  case  he  would  close  the  gate,  hang  a  lantern  on  it 
and  go  to  sleep  somewheres  down  stairs,  and  might  have  to  be 
called  several  times  before  he  came  out  to  open  the  gate.     Drivers 


32  TURNPIKE  ROADS  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

had  a  grudge  against  an  "after  ten"  gate-keeper.  On  Thursday- 
nights  the  market  men  and  hay  haulers  passed  down  the  Old 
York  road  so  as  to  be  in  Philadelphia  in  the  early  morning. 
There  were  so  many  of  them  thirty  years  ago  that  hotels  were 
kept  open  all  night  and  at  some  of  them  free  lunches  were  placed 
on  the  bars.  On  those  nights  the  gate-keepers  were  obliged  to 
collect  toll  all  night  and  sometimes  six  or  more  teams  would  be 
lined  up  at  a  gate  waiting  to  pay  their  toll  and  pass  through. 

Funeral  processions  were  allowed  to  pass  through  the  gates  to 
and  from  the  graveyards  without  paying  toll,  a  sort  of  discount 
after  a  man  had  paid  his  toll  in  his  life.  Anyone  driving  to  or 
from  church  was  not  required  to  pay  toll.  Motorists,  out  on  the 
"main  line"  beyond  Haverford,  used  to  carry  Prayer  Books  on 
Sunday  mornings  and  hold  them  up  as  they  passed  through  the 
gates  unchallenged,  although  they  may  have  gone  no  further  than 
the  nearest  roadhouse.     (Information  of  Mrs.  Harrison  Smith.) 

Thirty  years  ago,  when  little  boys  in  the  country  wore  boots 
and  were  proud  of  pocket  handkerchiefs  made  from  fragments 
of  old  white  shirts,  they  hailed  with  delight  an  invitation  from 
granddaddy  to  take  a  ride  somewhere.  While  toll-gates,  more 
plentiful  than  country  stores,  were  not  a  pleasant  thing  to  most 
people,  to  a  small  child  they  were  more  attractive  than  the  board- 
walk at  Atlantic  City  in  later  years,  for  there,  in  the  bulk-window, 
built  out  so  that  the  gate-keeper  could  see  up  and  down  the 
road,  were  shelves  covered  with  scalloped  or  crimped  newspapers 
on  which  were  large  glass  jars  (not  always  covered  with  lids) 
and  these  were  filled  with  great  ginger  cakes,  scalloped  and  stale, 
at  a  cent  apiece,  or  for  the  same  price,  the  plaited  mint-sticks  or 
birch  sticks  with  white  and  red  corkscrew  twisted  like  a  barber's 
pole  or  the  soft  limp  sugary  cocoanut  stripe  of  pink  and  white, 
chunks  of  yellow-jack  as  hard  as  flint,  butterscotch  and  the  home- 
made molasses  candy  with  black  walnut  kernels,  popcorn  balls  in 
pink  and  white,  Hcorice  shoestrings,  or,  best  of  all,  the  pale  yel- 
low and  white  striped  lemon  sticks,  bought  oftenest  because  they 
were  hardest  and  "licked"  longer  than  any  other.  In  those  days 
children  were  taught  that  they  should  be  seen  and  not  heard,  but 
it  was  a  poor  specimen  of  a  boy  who  could  not  bring  the  conver- 
sation around  to  a  lemon  stick  with  the  aid  of  the  gate-keeper, 
who  jingled  the  change,  pennies  in  hand,  while  he  handed  out 


TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  33 

the  latest  news,  especially  if  granddaddy  wanted  plug  tobacco 
with  its  gaudy  tin  tag  or  trade  mark  with  little  sharp  tack-like 
sides  or  legs  that  enabled  one  later  to  jab  it  into  the  soft  wood 
of  the  shed  door  until  long  shiny  rows,  or  arrows,  or  wheels 
had  been  formed,  thus  showing,  to  the  whole  world  the  ex- 
travagance of  granddaddy 's  bad  habit.  In  later  years,  these  men, 
to  the  sorrow  of  little  boys,  were  called  merchants  by  the  govern- 
ment and  were  obliged  to  pay  a  mercantile  tax.  But  the  profit 
had  always  been  small,  too  small  to  cover  the  tax,  and  so  the 
large  glass  jars  were  taken  down  and  disappeared,  and  toll-gates 
lost  their  importance  and  keepers  didn't  count  as  far  as  little 
boys  were  concerned. 

Laura  Long,  when  a  little  girl,  lived  near  the  Gardenville  toll- 
gate.  Her  mother  used  to  give  her  a  penny  for  helping  with  the 
work  about  the  house.  At  the  first  chance  she  would  run  ofif  to 
the  toll-gate  to  buy  a  little  tin  pie  dish,  or  perhaps  a  frying  pan 
filled  with  a  sticky  pink  or  red  candy  mixture  that  had  to  be 
licked  ofif.  These  dishes  and  pans,  with  a  little  toy  cook  stove 
helped  make  up  a  miniature  kitchen.  Sometimes  little  tin  spoons 
were  given  out  with  the  plates.  There  were  times  when  the  gate- 
keeper needed  some  work  done,  weeds  pulled  in  the  garden,  etc., 
and  another  penny  would  be  earned  or  better  still,  another  dish  of 
candy  would  be  given  and  happy  was  the  day  when  she  could 
carry  home  two  dishes  of  candy  even  when  her  mother,  cross 
over  the  long  delay,  had  to  go  after  her  with  a  switch. 

Incidents  in  Reference  to  Toll  Roads  and  Toll  Gatherers  Were 
Related  as  Follows. 

BY   MRS.   H.  S.  PRENTISS   NICHOLS,  GERMANTOWN,   PA. 

The  significance  of  the  word  "Turn-pike"  was  told  to  me  years 
ago  by  my  dear  father  Mr.  John  Mclllhenny,  whose  wonderful 
mind  was  a  storehouse  of  information.  In  the  early  days  the 
word  pike  meant  pole  or  statT.  When  good  roads  were  very  few 
and  far  between  companies  were  authorized  to  construct  them 
and  repay  themselves  by  collecting  "toll"  or  payment  from  those 
who  travelled  over  them  and  in  order  to  do  so  set  up  at  certain 
intervals  a  pike  or  pole  on  a  hinge  which  the  collector  could  turn 
across  the  road  to  bar  the  passage  until  the  toll  was  paid,  hence  a 
road  with  a  turn-pike  was  called  from  this  fact  a  turnpike.     The 


34  TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

word  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  construction  of  the  road.  It 
could  be  a  mere  dirt  road  but  if  it  had  a  turnpike  on  it  the  road 
itself  came  to  be  called  a  turnpike.  The  first  authorization  for 
such  roads  in  England  were  under  Edward  III.  The  by  or  back 
roads  that  avoided  the  toll  gatherers  came  to  be  known  as  "shun- 
pikes." 

BY  FRANK  SAURMAN,  CHURCHVILLE,   PA. 

At  a  toll-gate,   probably   on   the   Bridgetown   turnpike,   about 

forty  years  ago  the  father  of  the  late  John  M ,  frequently 

oflfered  one  hundred  dollar  bills  for  toll,  as  the  gate-keeper  could 
not  change  them  he  thus  escaped  paying  his  toll.  On  one  oc- 
casion, however,  the  toll-gatherer  took  the  precautions  to  have 

the  change  ready  and  when  Mr.  M ,  held  out  the  bill, 

and  was  on  the  point  of  passing  on,  shouted  out,  "Hold  up ! 
I've  got  the  change,"  and  so  the  toll  for  that  trip  was  paid. 

BY   SETH    T.    WALTON,   WILLOW   GROVE.    PA. 

At  a  toll-gate  on  the  Old  York  road,  about  seventy-five  years 

ago,  Mr.  L ,  approached  the  gate  at  night  with  a  long  team 

of  horses  driven  tandem,  and  found  the  gate-keeper  asleep.  He 
knocked  at  the  gate  house  door,  and  then  pounded  loudly,  but  as 
there  was  no  answer  he  hitched  his  horses  to  the  toll-gate  post, 
pulled  it  out,  dragged  it  gate  and  all,  oflf  the  road  and  passed  on. 
The  affair  was  afterwards  formally  settled. 

John  C.  Agen,  who  kept  the  toll-gate  between  Hatboro  and 
Willow  Grove,  on  the  Willow^  Grove  and  Warminster  turnpike 
road  in  the  eighteen  seventies,  was  one  of  the  most  pleasant  and 
genial  of  toll-gatherers.  When  he  died  September  28,  1883,  I 
paid  tribute  to  his  excellence  and  worth  in  the  following  lines, 
which  his  patriarchal  and  kindly,  cherry  manner  inspired.  They 
are  copied  from  an  issue  of  the  Hatboro  Public  Spirit,  published 
a  few  days  later. 

IN    MEMORIAM. 

The  gentle  keeper  of  that  gate  that  stands  beside  the  way. 
No  more  will  greet  us  as  we  pass  the  tollhouse  day  by  day ; 
No  more  will  we  behold  his  face,  rimmed  with  its  flowing  beard. 
That  at  each  passer's  summoning  so  graciously  appeared. 


TURNPIKE  ROADS  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY  35 

Himself  a  traveler  upon  life's  hard  and  stony  road, 

He  has  the  last  gate  journeyed  through  and  borne  his  weary  load  ; 

And  to  the  Keeper  of  the  gate  that  bars  the  way  of  life, 

He  has  delivered  up  the  toll  collected  in  the  strife. 

We   know   that   we    shall   miss   thee,    friend,    whenever   passing 

through 
The  gate  that  thou  dids't  keep  so  well,  so  faithfully  and  true. 
And  long  we'll  keep  in  memory  thy  pleasant  cheery  face ; 
And  kindly  voice  that  greeted  us  with  such  courtesy  and  grace. 

And  gentle  keeper  of  the  gate,  in  bidding  thee  farewell, 
We  feel  that  thou  art  faring  well  where  happy  spirits  dwell. 
And  when  the  summons  comes  to  us,  as  'twill  come  soon  or  late, 
May  we,  like  thee,  life  enter,  through  the  straight  and  narrow  gate. 

BY    HENRY    C.    MERCER,    SC.D.,    DOYLESTOWN,    PA. 

The  toll-gates  above  referred  to,  appear  to  have  been  con- 
struced  in  three  ways : 

1.  The  single  armed  gate.  From  a  small  post  fixed  at  the 
outer  edge  of  the  road,  opposite  the  toll-house,  extended  a  pole 
or  strip  of  wood  (the  guard  rail)  to  another  larger  post  standing 
nearly  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  equipped  with  two  spiked 
wrought  iron  hinge  pivots.  Upon  the  latter  post  swung  a  bracket 
made  of  three  wooden  pieces,  first  a  vertical  arm  with  the  hinges, 
second  a  short  diagonal  brace  mortised  in  position,  third  a 
horizontal  pole  long  enough  to  reach  the  wall  of  the  gate-house 
and  meet  there  a  smaller  post.  When  open,  this  gate-bar  ex- 
tended at  right  angles  to  the  guard-rail  and  parallel  to  the  road. 
(See  illustration,  page  18.) 

2.  The  double  armed  gate.  The  former  apparatus  doubled  or 
lacking  the  guard  rail,  so  that  two  brackets  instead  of  one  swung 
on  the  central  post  to  open  or  close  the  road.  In  this  case  only 
the  bracket  nearest  the  toll-house  seems  to  have  been  used,  the 
other  bracket,  generally  in  bad  repair,  remained  either  perma- 
nently open  or  closed. 

3.  The  sweep  gate.  A  long  light  bar  made  of  two  pointed 
boards  (in  the  WVightstown  gate  fifteen  feet  seven  inches  long) 
bolted  together  on  blocks,  hinged  or  pivoted  and  balanced  on  a 
strong  post  close  to  the  toll-house  so  as  to  rise  vertically  and 


36  TURNPIKE    ROADS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

open  the  road,  or  fall  and  close  it,  upon  another  post,  with  or  with- 
out a  guard-rail  as  above  described  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
road. 

On  the  recent  freeing  of  the  Buckingham  and  Newtown,  and 
Buckingham  and  New  Hope  turnpike  roads ;  I  obtained  from  the 
two  companies,  as  presents,  for  our  museum,  four  of  these  gates, 
with  their  posts,  brackets,  guard-rails,  etc.,  complete,  namely : 
A,  the  Wrightstown  gate  of  class  3.  B,  the  Buckingham  Moun- 
tain gate  of  class  2,  unfortunately  lacking  the  central  post.  C, 
the  Buckingham  gate  of  class  1,  where  the  bracket  was  equipped 
with  a  vertical  cedar  pole  at  its  outer  end  which  enabled  the  gate- 
keeper to  close  the  gate  by  pulling  a  string  stretched  from  the 
pole's  end,  above  wagon  top  level,  across  the  road,  and,  D,  the 
Pools  Corner  gate  of  class  2.  in  very  bad  condition  where  the 
posts  generally  rotted  out  at  the  base  had  been  faced  with  boards. 

Together  with  these  gates,  dug  up  and  hauled  to  the  museum 
on  April  4th,  and  May  8th,  1917,  I  obtained  several  signboards 
painted  with  the  words  "Stop  and  Pay  Toll,  Save  Cost,"  cash 
boxes  and  a  sliding  cash  drawer,  an  iron  handle  to  screw  against 
the  house  at  the  sweep-gate  to  be  grasped  by  the  gate-keeper  in 
lifting  the  short  down  balanced  end  of  the  bar  to  close  the  gate 
and  a  hook  and  staple  to  catch  the  bar  when  up  and  open  on  a 
sweep-gate,  etc.,  all  of  which  objects  together  with  the  Wrights- 
town  and  Mountain  gates  are  now  on  exhibition  in  the  museum 
and  explained  under  their  numbers  in  our  catalogue. 

It  appears  that  turnpike  roads,  and  therefore  toll-gates  though 
a  celebrated  feature  in  the  country  life  of  old  England,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  did  not  exist  in  Bucks  county  in  Colonial 
times.  The  Buckingham  and  Newtown  road  as  Mr.  Kirk  tells 
us  was  built  in  the  late  1840's  and  probably  all  the  toll-gates  re- 
ferred to  in  the  above  notes  were  built  within  the  memory  of 
persons  now  living.  The  toll-gates  in  our  museum  are  therefore 
not  more  than  70  years  old.  One  of  the  brackets  of  the  Moun- 
tain gate  and  several  of  the  timbers  of  the  Buckingham  gate 
(fifteen  feet,  nine  inches  long)  made  of  old  hewn  wood,  may  be 
pieces  of  the  original  construction.  Otherwise  many  of  the  de- 
molished parts  of  all  four  gates  show  repairs  and  insertions  with 
modem  sawed  lumber.  The  Universal  Magazine  for  October 
1751  at  page  172  says: 


THE      DRAISANA      OR  PEDESTRIAN   HOBBY   HORSE  Z7 

"In  the  Act  for  preservation  of  turnpike  roads,  etc.,  it  is  enacted  that 
after  the  first  of  July  1752  every  wagon  or  other  carriage  drawn  with 
six  horses,  except  coaches,  berlins,  chariots,  chaises,  calashes,  hearses 
and  all  waggons  wains,  carts  and  other  carriages  employed  only  about 
husbandry  or  in  carrying  only  of  straw,  hay,  corn  unthrashed,  chalk 
or  any  stone,  or  block  of  marble  or  piece  of  timber,  and  all  caravans  or 
covered  carriages  of  noblemen,  etc.,  for  their  private  use,  or  such 
timber,  ammunition  or  artilery  as  shall  be  necessary  for  his  Majesty's 
service,  shall  pay  20  s.  at  every  turnpike  through  which  it  passes  above 
all  other  tolls  or  duties  to  be  applied  to  the  repair  of  the  highway: 
and  5  1.  in  case  any  horse  be  taken  of¥  from  the  carriage  to  avoid  the 
said  duty  to  be  levied  by  distress  and  sale  of  the  offender's  goods,  and 
that  after  the  31st  of  September  1751  any  person  may  seize  or  distrain 
for  his  own  sole  use  any  one  horse  (except  the  thill  or  shaft  horse)  of 
any  carriage  driving  out  of  the  turnpike  road  to  avoid  the  tolls." 


The  "Draisiana"  or  Pedestrian  Hobby  Horse  of  1819. 

BY    HORACE   WELLS   SELLERS,    PHIL.\DELPHIA. 
(Churchville  Meeting,   May   23,   1917.) 

AMONG  the  objects  in  the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society,  the  old  hand  power  fire  engine^  and 
the  device  known  in  its  day  as  a  "walking  machine,"  are 
mentioned  in  certain  contemporary  writings  which  happen  to 
contain  also  incidents  of  historical  interest  relating  to  Bucks 
county.  These  writings  comprise  the  journals,  correspondence 
and  biographical  notes  of  Charles  Wilson  Peak  (1741-1827), 
portrait  painter,  who  was  in  active  service  as  an  officer  during  our 
Revolutionary  War  and  in  his  later  years  was  the  founder  of  the 
first  museum  of  natural  history  in  America. 

The  primitive  bicycle  in  the  collection  is  an  object  that  might 
be  passed  by  without  fully  realizing  its  historic  significance,  and 
I  shall  therefore  refer  more  particularly  to  it,  especially  as  very 
little  has  been  written  concerning  its  origin  and  early  use. 

It  is  of  the  type  first  introduced  into  America  about  the  year 
1819.  It  was  then  a  popular  amusement  abroad  and  much  dis- 
cussed in  the  newspapers  and  magazines  of  the  day. 

It  was  popularly  known  as  the  "Pedestrian  Hobby-Horse"  or 

1  The  Hand  Power  Fire  Engine  is  fully  described  by  John  A.  Anderson, 
in  his  paper,   "Interesting  New  Hope  Relics  ;"  see  Vol.   IV,  p.   75. 


38  THE  "draisana"  or  pedestrian  hobby  horse 

"fast  walking  machine,"  and  by  the  term  "Velocipede"  or 
"Draisiana"  in  England  and  America,  while  in  Germany  it  was 
called  "Drais  Laufmashin,"  and  in  France  the  "Draisena." 

In  referring  to  it  Peale  states  that  it  was  the  invention  of  a 
German  named  Drais,  and  his  authority  for  this  was  afterwards 
reprinted  in  the  Analetic  Magadne  of  Philadelphia  in  the  year 
1819,  in  which  the  inventor  is  described  as  "Baron  Charles  De 
Drais,  master  of  the  woods  and  forests  of  H.  R.  H.  the  Grand 
Duke  of  Baden." 


'M  '/KA 

j^*-''^''^ '       ^  '^^mmB^w! 

!i»|^9jhHB^k^^^^^^BB^^m|^^^^h 

While  the  machine,  like  the  modern  bicycle,  consisted  of  two 
wheels  of  equal  diameter,  with  the  forward  wheel  pivoted  and 
controlled  by  a  steering  device,  the  essential  point  of  difference 
was  (as  may  be  seen  in  the  machine  in  your  museum)  that  in- 
stead of  being  provided  with  pedals  it  was  propelled  by  the 
rider's  feet  on  the  ground. 

A  reference  to  this  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  of  March 
1819  is  interesting,  showing  also  the  attention  at  the  time: 

"The  new  machine  entitled  a  Velocipede,  consisting  of  two  wheels 
one  before  the  other,  connected  by  a  perch,  on  which  the  pedestrian 
rests  the  weight  of  his  body,  while  with  his  feet  he  urges  the  machine 
forward,  on  the  principle  of  skating,  is  already  in  very  general  use. 
'The  road  from  Ipswich  to  Whitton,'  says  the  Bury  paper,  'is  traveled 
every  evening  by  several  pedestrian  hobby-horses;  no  less  than  six  are 
seen  at  a  time,  and  the  distance  which  is  three  miles,  performed  in 
fifteen  minutes. 

"  'A  military  gentleman  has  made  a  bet  to  go  to  London  by  the  side 
of  the  coach.' 

"The  crowded  state  of  the  Metropolis  does  not  admit  of  this  novel 
mode    of    exercise,    and    it    has    been    put    down    by    the    Magistrate    of 


THE  "dRAISANa''  OR  PEDESTRIAN   HOBBY   HORSE  39 

Police:   but   it  contributes   to   the  amusement   of   the   passengers   in   the 
streets  in  the  shape  of  caricatures  in  the  print  shops." 

Among  these  English  prints  is  one  showing  the  interior  of 
"Johnson's  Pedestrian  Hobby  Horse  School  at  1)77  Strand,"  as 
the  title  reads,  in  which  riders  wearing  tall  beaver  hats  and  the 
fashionable  costumes  of  the  day  are  seen  traveling  around  a  ring 
which  appears  to  have  an  undulating  surface  to  permit  "coast- 
ing," as  we  now  call  it,  to  which  the  machine  was  especially 
adapted. 

Another  print  shows  "Johnston,  First  rider  of  the  Pedestrian 
Hobby-Horse,"  and  among  the  caricatures  is  a  colored  print  with 
the  title,  "More  Economy,  or  a  penny  Saved  a  Penny  Got,"  rep- 
resenting a  Bishop  riding  a  hobby-horse  with  John  Bull  looking 
on  and  Windsor  Castle  in  the  distance.  Another  is  called,  "Go- 
ing to  the  Hobbyfair"  and  shows  an  old  gentleman  who  is  pro- 
pelling the  machine  and  mopping  his  brow,  his  wig  and  hat  placed 
in  front  of  him  while  behind  are  seated  a  lady  and  children. 

A  cut  of  the  "Velocipede  of  1827,"  with  two  wheels  propelled 
by  the  rider's  feet,  is  shown  in  Pcrky's  Reniinisccnscs,  Vol.  I, 
p.  30,  with  the  statement  that  "One  of  the  secretaries  of  legation 
created  a  sensation  by  appearing  on  Pennsylvania  avenue,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C.,  mounted  on  a  velocipede  imported  from  London." 

Some  of  these  prints  illustrate  the  variations  of  the  machine  as 
designed  to  meet  the  more  delicate  sensibilities  of  women  who 
would  hardly  venture  to  mount  astride  the  wheels,  it  not  being 
the  fashion  in  that  age  to  indulge  in  masculine  pursuits,  and  for 
their  use  we  see  represented  in  one  of  the  prints  "The  Ladies' 
Hobby,"  with  the  following  description  under  that  title : 

"The  principle  of  this  machine  consists  in  two  boards  acting  on 
cranks,  on  the  axle  of  the  forewheel,  in  a  similar  manner  to  those 
used  for  the  purpose  of  turnery,  and  accelerated  by  the  use  of  the 
handles,  as  represented  in  the  plate;  the  direction  is  managed  by  the 
centre  handle,  which  may  be  fixed  so  as  to  perform  any  given  circle." 

This  was  a  tricycle  and  another  print  shows  one  called  "A 
Pilentum,  or  Lady's  Accelerator  invented  by  Hancock  &  Co., 
St.  James  Street." 

These  tricycles  were  operated  by  pedals  and  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine  of  June,  1819.  we  read : 

"A  model  of  a  Velocipede  intended  for  the  use  of  ladies,  is  now  ex- 


40  THE  "dRAISANa"  OR  PEDESTRIAN   HOBBY   HORSE 

hibited  at  Ackerman's,  in  London.  It  resembles  Johnstone's  machine, 
and  has  two  wheels  behind,  which  are  wrought  by  two  levers,  like 
weaver's  treadles,  on  which  the  person  impelling  the  machine  presses 
alternately  with  a  walking  motion.  These  move  the  axle  by  means  of 
leather  straps  round  the  cramps;  and  the  wheels  being  fixed  revolve 
with  it.  The  lady  sits  on  a  seat  before,  and  directs  the  Velocipede  as 
in  the  original  invention." 

The  possibilities  of  this  new  method  of  conveyance  and  rapid 
transit  appealed  to  the  popular  fancy  and  stimulated  invention 
with  the  result  that  numerous  variations  of  the  machine  were  de- 
vised. One  called  the  "Pedestrian  Chariot"  is  described  as  hav- 
ing "infinitely  greater  power  and  as  entirely  unlike  the  velocipede. 
Its  chief  attractions  are  its  simplicity  and  perfect  safety,  being 
eligible  for  the  conveyance  of  ladies,  and  even  children.  The 
wheels  are  upwards  of  six  feet  in  diameter,  run  parallel  with 
each  other ;  and  as  the  seat  is  below  the  center  of  gravity  the  rider 
can  neither  be  thrown,  nor  easily  lose  his  equilibrium." 

To  return  to  the  Draisiana  or  "Fast  walking  machine"  in  its 
original  and  simplest  form  as  it  appears  in  your  collection,  the 
published  accounts  in  discussing  it  seriously  assert  that : 

"The  instrument  appears  to  have  satisfied  a  desideratum  in  me- 
chanics; all  former  attempts  have  failed,  upon  the  known  principle  that 
power  is  attainable  only  at  the  expense  of  velocity.  But  the  impelling 
principle  is  totally  different  from  all  others;  it  is  not  derived  from  the 
body  of  the  machine,  but  from  a  resistance  operating  externally,  and 
in  a  manner  the  most  conformable  to  nature — the  resistance  of  the 
feet  upon  the  ground.  The  body  is  carried  and  supported,  as  it  were, 
by  two  skates,  while  the  impulse  is  given  by  the  alternate  motion  of 
both   legs." 

At  the  time  Charles  Wilson  Peale  became  interested  in  this 
subject  he  was  best  known  perhaps  on  account  of  the  museum  he 
had  established,  and  as  a  member  and  for  many  years  one  of  the 
Curators  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  he  kept  in  touch 
with  the  progress  of  the  sciences  and  the  industrial  arts.  His 
celebrity  as  a  portrait  painter  before  and  during  the  Revolution 
was  not  forgotten  although  he  laid  aside  his  brush  as  a  profes- 
sion some  years  before  Stuart,  Trumbull  and  the  younger  artists, 
who  were  about  fifteen  years  his  junior,  had  entered  the  field  in 
this  country  and  his  own  sons,  Raphael  and  Rembrandt  had  in  a 
large  measure  taken  his  place. 

After  placing  the  museum  under  the  direction  of  the  board  of 


THE      DRAISANA  '  OR  PEDESTRIAN   HOBBY  HORSE  41 

trustees  and  the  management  of  one  of  his  sons,  Peale  retired  to 
his  country  seat,  "Belfield,"  near  Germantown,  and  it  was  not 
until  then  that  he  was  tempted  to  resume  his  painting  through  his 
interest  in  the  newer  technique  of  the  younger  school  of  painters. 
This  return  to  his  art  attracted  some  little  notice  and  in  Feb- 
ruary of  1819  a  Baltimore  newspaper  commenting  upon  it,  re- 
fers to  his  having 

"Been  distinguished  for  his  zeal  in  painting  an  invaluable  series  of 
portraits  of  our  Revolutionary  heroes,  which  adorn  his  museum  in 
Philadelphia.  That  museum,  however,  for  a  long  time  withdrew  him 
from  painting,  until  he  retired,  nine  years  ago  to  the  labors  of  a  farm. 
It  is  probable  the  vigor  of  his  present  health  may  be  ascribed  to  this 
circumstance.  Animated  by  his  youthful  ardor,  he  has  resumed  the 
pencil,  and  has  just  returned  from  Washington  with  a  number  of  por- 
traits of  public  characters." 

The  portraits  mentioned  were  those  of  President  Monroe,  mem- 
bers of  the  cabinet,  and  others  prominent  in  official  life  at  that 
time.  After  leaving  the  capitol  he  stopped  at  Baltimore  and 
while  there  his  attention  was  called  to  what  he  describes  as  "a 
fast  walking  machine  made  by  Mr.  Stewart,  a  musical  instrument 
maker." 

A  few  months  later,  in  May  1918,  he  again  refers  to  the  sub- 
ject in  a  letter  to  his  son  Rembrandt  Peale: 

"I  wish  you  would  send  me  your  verses  on  it,  as  appropriate  to  the 
present  general  conversation,  it  is  all  the  fashion.  Seeing  a  Print  in 
Aikens  repository,  I  set  about  making  one,  the  frame  all  iron,  as  is 
the  custom  of  Britain  to  make  everything.  And  I  made  the  hind 
wheel  two  feet  seven  and  one-half  inches  diameter,  the  circumference 
is  one-half  pole;  a  machine  which  Mr.  Lukins  some  time  past  gave  me 
for  my  chaize,  to  measure  roads — two  revolutions  of  my  Velocipede 
wheel  being  equal  to  one  of  the  chaize — I  have  only  to  count  one-half 
the  distance  given  by  the  hands  of  the  machine.  Thus  my  Velocipede 
will  not  only  be  amusing,   but  also  useful. 

"The  curiosity  has  and  still  is  great  to  see  this  fast  walking  ma- 
chine, and  having  deposited  it  in  the  museum,  it  has  given  Rubins  a 
very  considerable  profit,  as  a  great  deal  of  company  has  visited  the 
museum  on  purpose  to  see  it,  being  the  first  made  in  Pennsylvania..  As 
soon  as  it  was  heard  of,  several  of  them  appeared  immediately  con- 
structed in  a  different  manner  of  wood,  some  of  them  very  light;  some 
of  a  temporary  nature.  Mine  was  made  of  the  irons  which  had  be- 
longed to  my  thrashing  machine,  put  together  by  an  indifferent  black- 
smith; it  weighed  fifty-five  pounds.  I  might  take  off  five  pounds  of 
that  weight,  and  it   then  will  be   exactly  of   the  weight   of  those   made 


42  THE  "draisana"^  or  pedestrian  hobby  horse 

in  England.  It  is  a  mistake  to  expect  use  from  them  if  they  are  made 
of  very  little  weight,  and  a  few  pounds  additional  is  of  little  conse- 
quence as  being  borne  on  the  wheels.  Mr.  Stewart  is  exhibiting  his  at 
the  Federal  Hall,  whether  he  makes  it  profitable  or  not  I  have  not 
heard." 

The  exhibition  of  this  first  machine  is  referred  to  in  the 
American  Daily  Advertiser  of  May  13,  1819,  in  a  news  item 
under  the  heading  of  "Velocipede,"  reading: 

"This  whimsical  pedestrian  accelerator,  having  excited  much  curios- 
ity, Mr.  Peale  has  made  one,  which  is  now  in  the  museum." 

As  Peale  states,  others  were  quick  to  introduce  the  device,  and 
in  another  column  of  the  same  newspaper  we  read : 

"The  Velocipede  will  be  exhibited  at  the  Vauxhall  Gardens  by  Mr. 
Chambers,  on  Thursday  morning  the  13th  of  May,  to  be  continued 
daily  (Sunday  excepted)  from  9  to  11  o'clock — and  in  the  evening  from 
6  to  7  o'clock,  by  permission  of  the  proprietor,  and  will  be  propelled 
round  the  walks  moved  by  the  feet  of  the  gentleman  that  rides  upon  it." 

Peale  was  in  his  69th  year  at  this  time  but  to  undertake  to 
use  the  velocipede  at  his  age  was  quite  in  accord  with  his  fa- 
vorite theory  that  by  continued  activity  in  wholesome  and  use- 
ful pursuits,  joined  with  prudence  and  temperance  in  all  things, 
the  average  man  might  escape  the  ennui  and  ills  of  old  age. 

During  the  summer  of  1819  he  was  closely  confined  to  his 
painting  room  at  "Belfield,"  being  engaged  upon  a  large  canvas 
ful  of  detail  and  many  figures,  and  after  describing  this  in  a 
letter  he  adds : 

"I  have  been  constantly  at  my  easel  from  early  in  the  morning  until 
night,  painting  until  my  back  would  ache,  then  I  would  ride  the 
Draisiana  round  a  few  squares  in  the  Garden,  return  again  to  my  brush, 
thus  alternately  paint  and  take  exercise,  otherwise  I  never  could  have 
painted    such   a   picture." 

In  keeping  with  his  usual  habit  of  thought  he  made  the  ma- 
chine serve  a  useful  purpose  by  applying  to  it  a  cyclometer  made 
for  his  chaize  by  Josiah  Lukins  the  clockmaker.  The  instrument 
he  states  was  graduated  to  record  "the  distances  passed  over  in 
perches  as  well  as  in  miles  to  the  number  of  one  hundred"  and  in 
a  letter  to  one  of  his  sons  in  September  1819  he  states : 

"Yesterday  I  began  a  survey  of  the  farm,  having  borrowed  a  survey- 
ing compass  to  give  the  courses.  I  measured  the  distance  with  m}- 
Machine  which  is  a  more  expeditious  mode  than  by  a  Chain,  and  I  be- 
lieve  tolerably  accurate." 


THE  "dRAISANa''  OR  PEDESTRIAN   HOBBY   HORSE  43 

From  another  letter  we  learn  that  his  son  Franklin  Peale  was 
making  a  walking  machine  of  wood  : 

"Which  will  not  weigh  much  more  than  half  of  mine.  This  is  all 
important  as  we  cannot  go  without  labour  up  hill  *  *  *  this  dis- 
advantage is  amply  made  up  by  the  velocity  on  descending  ground, 
your  brothers  and  other  young  men  go  down  my  road  from  the  house 
to  the  'Echo'  without  touching  the  ground  with  the  speed  of  a  running 
horse,  nay  they  often  put  their  feet  over  the  (arm)  rest  *  *  *  * 
Some  gentlemen  who  come  to  the  farm,  make  a  very  awkward  display 
of  their  legs  and  tumble  down.  Franklin  went  to  Robert  Morris'  in 
three-quarters  of  an  hour,  when  the  machine  was  not  so  complete  as 
it  is  at  present,  and  I  believe  with  a  well  made  machine  the  speed 
may  be  calculated  on  tolerably  good  roads,  at  about  six  or  seven  miles 
an   hour  without  incurring  much   fatigue." 

The  action  of  the  poHce  magistrates  of  London  in  prohibiting 
the  use  of  the  machine  as  already  referred  to,  had  its  echo  in 
Philadelphia  where  according  to  Peale  it  met  with  opposition. 
After  the  machine  had  been  ridden  a  few  mornings  and  even- 
ings around  Washington  Square,  which  distance  he  notes  was 
traveled  by  one  of  his  sons,  Franklin  Peale,  in  two  and  one-half 
minutes,  an  ill-natured  person  resurrected  an  old  law  designated 
to  protect  sidewalks  from  damage  under  which  a  fine  of  $3.00 
was  imposed  for  each  ofifense  for  driving  a  two-wheeled  carriage 
on  the  pavement.  A  young  man  who  had  ridden  one  of  the 
walking  machines  was  brought  before  the  mayor  and  while  his 
offense  was  hardly  within  the  intention  of  the  law  he  paid  the 
fine  to  avoid  further  trouble,  but  Peale  adds,  this  ended  the  use 
of  the  walking  machine  within  the  city  limits. 

In  referring  at  the  outset  to  Peak's  writings  in  general,  allusion 
was  made  to  incidents  of  local  interest  relating  to  Bucks  county. 
Reserving  these  for  another  occasion  I  will  simply  say  in  con- 
clusion that  in  1777,  when  Philadelphia  was  threatened  by  the 
British,  Peale  removed  his  family  for  safety  first  to  the  house  of 
Mr.  Britton,  near  Abington,  and  when  the  British  finally  occupied 
the  city,  after  the  Battle  of  Germantown  he  found  it  advisable  to 
seek  a  more  remote  place  of  refuge  and  with  the  assistance  of 
Dr.  Tombs  he  moved  to  a  house  owned  by  Mr.  Vanartsdalen  not 
far  from  Newtown  and  probably  at  Richboro.-  It  was  at  that 
place,  and  while  he  was  with  the  army  at  Valley  Forge  that  his 
son  Rembrandt  Peale  was  born  on  February  22,  1778.  The 
latter  is  therefore  claimed  as  a  native  of  Bucks  county. 

2  Possibly  the  site  of  the  Indian  town  of  Playwicky,  on  the  Feasterville 
turnpike. 


Life  and  Work  of  the  Rev.  Peter  Henry  Dorsius. 

BY  THE  REV.   WILLIAM   J.   HINKE,   PH.D.,  D.D.,  AUBURN,    N.   Y. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,   January   19,   1918.) 

IN  a  paper  presented  to  this  society  January  16,  1916,  on  the 
Rev.  Paulus  Van  Vlecq,  the  writer  showed  that  on  May  20, 
1710,  Pauhis  Van  Vlecq  organized  a  Dutch  Reformed  con- 
gregation at  Neshaminy,  Bucks  county.  That  it  was  a  Dutch  Re- 
formed congregation  cannot  at  all  be  doubtful.  Both  pastor  and 
people  had  been  reared  in  the  Dutch  church..  They  conducted 
their  services  in  the  Dutch  language  and  kept  also  their  records 
in  Dutch.  In  the  fall  of  that  year,  on  September  21,  1710,  this 
Dutch  Reformed  pastor  asked  the  Ptesbytery  of  Philadelphia  to 
admit  him  to  membership.  This  request  was  granted  "after 
serious  debating  thereon." 

At  the  same  meeting  of  Presbytery  Mr.  Leonard  Van  Degrift 
was  admitted  to  sit  with  the  Presbytery  as  representing  the 
Neshaminy  Church.  This  proves  that  both  pastor  and  people 
had  become,  at  least  for  the  time  being,  members  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church. 

The  Neshaminy  congregation  continued  in  existence  until  1713, 
when  Mr.  Van  Vlecq  left  the  church  and  the  state.  In  1714, 
when  the  Abington  Presbyterian  Church  was  organized,  at  least 
two  members  of  Neshaminy  joined  that  organization,  namely 
Christoffel  Van  Sandt  and  Dirck  Croesen.  Their  names  are 
found  attached  to  a  paper,^  by  which  seventy  people  of  the  town- 
ship of  Abington  "engaged  themselves  to  the  Lord  and  to  one 
another  to  unite  in  a  Church-State,"  with  Malachi  Jones  as 
their  pastor. 

A  larger  number  of  Dutch  people  joined  in  1719  in  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Bensalem  Presbyterian  Church,  also  under  the 
leadership  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Jones.  They  were  not  only  Messrs. 
Van  Sandt  and  Croesen,  but  seventeen  other  Dutch  people.  It 
is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  their  names  are  found  in  the  old 
Neshaminy  record,  entered  there  by  the  elder  Van  Sandt.     He 

1  It  is  true  that  Captain  N.  Baggs.  in  his  History  of  the  Abington  Presby- 
terian Church  gives  the  date  of  this  document  as  1711,  but  that  is  most  lil^ely 
a  misprint,  as  in  1711  Van  Sandt  and  Croesen  were  still  members  of  the 
Neshaminy  Church.  Moreover,  Mr.  Jones  was  not  received  by  Presbytery 
till   1714. 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  45 

States  definitely  that  they  "were  received  on  profession  of  faith 
by  the  Rev.  Malachi  Jones."-  This  impHes  clearly  a  reorganiza- 
tion as  a  new  Presbyterian  Church,  although  the  old  Dutch  record 
was  used  and  the  Dutch  language. 

This  state  of  afifairs  continued  until  the  end  of  the  pastorate  of 
Mr.  Jones,  who  died  March  26,  1729.  Then  the  Dutch  people 
thought  the  time  had  come  for  them  to  reorganize  once  more 
and  form  again  an  independent  Dutch  congregation.  They  evi- 
dently felt  crowded  out  by  the  large  number  of  Irish  people  that 
had  come  in.  Hence  in  1730  they  invited  the  Rev.  Cornelius 
Santvoord  of  Staten  Island  to  visit  them. 


EFFORTS    TO    SECURE    DORSIUS    FOR    PENNSYLVANIA,    I73O-I737. 

Van  Santvoord  complied  with  the  request  of  the  Dutch  people 
in  Bucks  county  on  May  3d,  1730,  when  he  not  only  preached  for 
them  and  baptized  nine  of  their  children,  but  also  installed 
Christofifel  Van  Sandt  and  Gerrit  (Gerhard)  Croesen  as  elders, 
Benjamin  Corsen  and  Abraham  Van  der  Grift  as  deacons  of  the 
congregation.  This  event  marked  a  new  chapter  in  the  history 
of  the  congregation.  Henceforth  it  was  no  longer  under  Pres- 
byterian supervision,  but  it  proclaimed  itself  and  continued  to  be 
an  independent  Dutch  Reformed  congregation.  But  its  connec- 
tion with  the  organization  of  Van  Vlecq  is  established  by  the 
fact  that  virtually  the  same  people  (except  a  few  newcomers) 
constituted  the  membership  of  both  organizations.  In  other 
words,  the  church  of  Van  Vlecq,  organized  in  1710  and  disbanded 
in  1714,  was  reorganized  in  1730. 

Another  important  event  took  place  on  May  3,  1730.  The  con- 
gregation addressed  a  letter  (at  the  suggestion  of  Van  Sant- 
voord) to  Dominies  David  Knibble  and  John  Wilhelmius,  Dutch 
Reformed  pastors  at  Leyden  and  Rotterdam  in  Holland.  As  this 
document  has  not  been  published  before,  we  insert  in  it  full  :^ 

"To    the    Reverend,    Pious    and    Very    Learned    Sirs,    Messrs.    David 

2  See  Neshaminy  Record  in  Journal  of  Presbyterian  Historical  Society, 
Vol.   I,  p.   119. 

3  This  letter,  as  well  as  others  that  follow,  is  preserved  in  the  Archives 
of  the  General  Synod  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  America  at  New  Bruns- 
wick, N.  J.,  where  the  congregation  dejjosited  all  its  early  records  and  papers. 
They  are  in  the  Gardner  A.  Sage  Library  of  the  Theological  Seminary  at 
New  Brunswick. 


46  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY  DORSIUS 

Knibbe    and    John    Wilhelmius,    faithful    and    zealous    Ministers    of    the 
Gospel  at   Leyden   and   Rotterdam. 

"We,  the  consistory  of  the  Christian  Reformed  Dutch  congregation 
in  Bucks  county,  Pennsylvania,  take  the  liberty  of  requesting  the 
assistance  of  your  Reverences.  Under  the  providence  of  God  we  have 
here  our  homes,  but  thus  far  have  had  no  instruction  in  the  doctrines 
of  truth  which  tend  to  godliness,  in  our  mother-tongue,  a  language 
best  understood  by  us.  Hitherto  our  number  was  too  small  and  too 
weak  to  raise  a  sufificient  salary  for  a  regular  minister.  Meanwhile 
we  miss  for  ourselves  and  our  families  that  instruction  which  we  can 
best  understand  and  most  urgently  need,  and  which  we  at  the  same 
time  most  eagerly  desire. 

"We,  therefore,  request  your  Reverences  submissively,  for  the  honor 
of  God  and  the  establishment  of  this  church,  to  select  for  us  a  suitable 
man,  of  about  thirty  years  of  age,  unmarried,  having  a  distinct  pro- 
nunciation, well  grounded  in  the  doctrines  of  truth,  able  to  instruct 
and  admonish  us,  to  silence  all  gainsaj'ers,  and  of  an  edifying  walk 
and  conversation.  Having  found  such  a  man,  we  give  you  full  power 
and  authority  to  call  him  in  our  name  and  that  of  the  congregation, 
as  our  regular  minister,  to  have  the  proper  ecclesiastical  qualification 
conferred  upon  him,  and  we  promise  him  a  yearly  salary  of  sixty 
pounds,  of  which  his  Reverence  is  to  receive  payment  for  the  first 
half  year  upon  delivering  his  first  sermon  among  us,  and  in  case  the 
congregation  increases,  his  salary  shall  increase  correspondingly.  He 
is  also  to  receive  a  free  dwelling  house,  kindling  wood  and  the  passage 
money  for  himself  and  his  goods  to  this  place  and  on  the  day  of  the 
Lord  to  have  a  free  conveyance. 

"But  we  demand  of  him  that  he  preach  twice  every  Sunday  and  also 
on  other  days,  according  to  the  custom  of  our  church,  at  two  places, 
further  to  catechise  the  youth  and  others  who  desire  instruction  and 
to   do  everything  which  his  calling  demands. 

"We  promise  to  recognize  the  legality  of  that  which  your  Reverences 
shall  do,  to  receive  with  love  the  person  sent  to  us,  and  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  consistory  will  be  chosen  from  time  to  time,  as  is  cus- 
tomary at  present. 

"Done  thus  in  our  church  gathering  on  May  3,   1730,  by  us. 

"Your  submissive  servants,  the  elders  and  deacons  of  the  above- 
named   congregation   in   Bucks   county." 

When  Do.  Van  Santvoord  reached  home  he  sent  a  letter  to 
his  uncle,  Benjamin  Corsen,  dated  May  9,  1730,  in  which  he 
gave  his  friends  further  advice  regarding  "the  means  necessary 
to  establish  a  congregation  in  Bucks  county."  He  advised  them 
first,  to  consider  well  how  many  congregations  they  desired  to 
establish,  what  should  be  their  respective  boundaries  and  what 
families  should  belong  to  each.  Secondly,  to  call  a  meeting  of 
the  male  members  of  the  congregation    (or  congregations),   in 


LIFE   AND   WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HEXRV   DORSIUS  47 

order  to  elect  elders  and  deacons  in  conformity  with  the  church 
order  of  the  Synod  of  Dort.  Thirdly,  to  proceed  to  the  calling 
of  a  minister  by  settling  above  all  the  following  items:  (1) 
The  salary  of  the  minister,  which  ought  to  be  not  less  than  eighty 
pounds  Pennsylvania  currency ;  ( 2 )  The  parsonage  and  glebe 
which  ought  to  contain  enough  pasture  for  one  horse  and  two  or 
three  cows  and  at  least  a  small  garden  and  a  fair  orchard.  These 
should  be  put  in  order  while  the  call  was  on  its  way  to  Holland. 
Special  care  should  be  taken  that  the  parsonage  be  located  at  a 
place  convenient  for  the  minister  and  the  congregation.  (3)  The 
salary  of  the  minister,  although  raised  by  free-will  offerings, 
should  be  put  on  a  secure  basis  by  establishing  a  fund  from 
whose  income  it  could  be  paid. 

These  and  some  other  suggestions  which  the  good  Dominie 
made  to  his  friends  in  Bucks  county,  were  evidently  far  beyond 
their  ability  to  carry  out,  for  the  letter  sent  to  Holland  as  well 
as  later  evidence  show  that  they  fell  far  short  of  the  ideal  set 
for  them. 

The  letter  to  Holland  was  entrusted  to  two  German  Reformed 
travelers,  who  in  May,  1730,  were  setting  out  on  a  journey  to 
Holland.  They  were  the  Rev.  George  Michael  Weiss  and  Jacob 
Reiff,  one  of  the  members  of  the  Skippack  Reformed  congrega- 
tion. Reiff  was  entrusted  with  the  traveling  expenses  of  the  new 
minister  to  be  sent  from  Holland  to  Bucks  county.  Messrs. 
Weiss  and  Reiff  were  traveling  to  Holland  at  that  time,  in  order 
to  collect  there  some  money,  which  the  Dutch  churches  in  Hol- 
land had  contributed  for  the  German  Reformed  congregations  in 
Pennsylvania,  in  answer  to  an  appeal,  which  Weiss  had  sent  to 
Holland  in  1727. 

The  answer  to  the  Bucks  county  letter  from  Holland  was  ap- 
parently long  delayed.  At  least  no  letters  of  the  years  1732  and 
1733  are  found  in  the  archives  of  the  congregation.  Meanwhile 
dissensions  arose,  so  that  Mr.  Gerritt  Croesen  again  wrote  to 
their  faithful  friend  on  Staten  Island,  describing  to  him  their 
sad  condition,  and  asking  for  help  and  relief.  On  May  9,  1733, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Van  Santvoort  sent  a  letter  to  his  uncle,  Benjamin 
Corsen,  in  which  he  expressed  deep  regret  at  hearing  of  their 
division  and  that  John  Slecht  had  given  up  his  office  as  reader 
among  them.     He  counselled  peace  and  unity,  offered  to  come 


48  LIFE   AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.   PETER   HENRY  DORSIUS 

himself  once  a  year  to  them  to  administer  the  sacraments,  and, 
if  more  preaching  be  found  necessary,  he  advised  them  to  apply 
to  Do.  Theodore  J.  Frelinghuisen,  the  Dutch  Reformed  minister 
at  Raritan  and  New  Brunswick  in  New  Jersey. 

After  a  delay  of  several  years,  Rev.  John  Wilhelmius  wrote 
to  the  congregation,  on  May  29,  1734.  In  this  letter  he  informed 
them  that  the  first  candidate,  whom  he  had  secured  had  disap- 
pointed him.  But  that  he  had  found  another  young  man  of  about 
24  years  of  age,  who  was  anxious  to  come.  As  he  was  poor 
Wilhelmius  asked  permission  to  use  part  of  the  money  sent  to 
him  to  educate  this  young  man,  who  had  not  quite  finished  his 
education.     He  wrote  as  follows  :* 

"Worthy  and   Much   Beloved  Brethren   in   Jesus   Christ! 

"In  accordance  with  your  desire  I  offered  your  call  formally  to  an 
honest  and  learned  candidate,  named  Masius,  whose  father  is  pastor 
of  the  Dutch  Reformed  congregation  at  Altona  near  Hamburg.  He 
accepted  it  at  first,  but  when  the  time  of  his  departure  arrived,  his 
father  and  he  himself  also  wrote,  declining  the  call,  to  my  great  sorrow. 
Since  that  time  I  used  every  endeavor  to  find  another  person  for  that 
purpose,  but  was  unable  to  find  anyone.  Finally,  a  few  weeks  ago,  I 
met  a  certain  capable  and  pious  young  man,  of  about  24  years  of  age, 
who  still  needs  one  year  to  finish  his  studies.  He  showed  great  eager- 
ness and  desire  to  preach  the  Word  of  God  among  you,  but  he  has  no 
means  of  his  own.  I  believe  this  man  would  become,  under  the  bless- 
ing of  God,  a  useful  and  suitable  minister  among  you,  and  I  recom- 
mend him  to  you  most  heartily. 

"But  there  is  this  question,  whether  you  are  willing  to  grant  him  an- 
other year  to  finish  his  studies  and  whether  I  may  be  permitted  to  ad- 
vance him  enough  money  from  the  sum  which  you  have  placed  in  my 
hands  for  this  purpose  and  as  much  as  may  be  necessary  for  his  ex- 
amination and  his  ordination  in  this  country. 

"From  the  letters  which  I  received.  I  learned  that  his  salary  is  to  be 
sixty  pounds,  by  which  I  understood  pounds  sterling,  but  now  I 
learn  from  Captain  Stedman  that  a  [Pennsylvania]  pound  amounts  to 
only  six  or  seven  Dutch  guilders.  Besides  that,  he  is  to  receive  a  free 
parsonage,  wood  and  a  meadow  for  two  cows  and  a  horse.  Moreover, 
there  was  in  addition  another  letter  from  a  neighboring  place,  which 
promised  twenty  pounds  to  the  minister,  if  he  would  preach  for  them 
and  administer  the  Lord's  Supper  four  times  a  year. 

"I  now  report  that  the  money,  which  Ryff  handed  to  me,  is  still  in 
my  keeping,  in  exactly  the  same  amount,  and  that  I  am  ready  to  re- 
turn it,  upon  proper  receipt,  as  you  may  be  pleased  to  order.  But,  if 
you  consent  to  have  it  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  above-named  person, 
I  am  ready  to  employ  it  for  that  purpose.     I  am  awaiting  your  orders 

4  Original  at  New  Brunswick,  N.   J. 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.   PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  49 

and,  as  quickly  as  it  can  be  done,  he  will  fully  qualify  himself  for  the 
service  in  your  church  and  come  to  you. 

"The  reason  that  I  have  not  answered  before  this  was  the  lack  of 
opportunity  and  because  Ryff  promised  to  call  on  me  in  order  to  re- 
ceive my  answer  to  your  letter,  but  he  embarked  hastily  without  com- 
ing to  see  me. 

"Commending  you  to  God  and  the  Word  of  His  grace,  I  am  with 
every  readiness  to  serve  you, 

Worthy  Brethren  in  Christ, 

Your  affectionate  Brother, 

JOHN  WILHELMIUS. 

Rotterdam.   May  29,    1734. 

"To  Mr.  Louis  Timothee,  in  order  to  hand  it  over  to  the  elder  and 
deacon,  Mr.  Gerrit  Kroesen  and  Mr.  Benjamin  Corsen  in  Pennsylvania. 
With  Captain  Stedman." 

On  October  30,  1734,  the  consistory  of  the  Neshaminy  congre- 
gation answered  the  letter  of  Wilhehnius.  They  expressed  their 
pleasure  at  hearing  that  a  young  man  had  been  found  by  Wil- 
helmius,  who  was  willing  to  accept  their  call.  They  declared 
their  willingness  to  wait  for  him  and  gave  their  consent  that  the 
money  they  had  sent  over  be  used  for  his  support  while  he  was 
studying.  They  announced  their  intention  of  buying  a  planta- 
tion of  fifty  acres  as  a  glebe  for  their  pastor  and  expressed  the 
hope  that  God  would  bless  his  studies.  Finally  they  thanked 
Wilhelmius  for  the  exertions  he  had  made  in  their  behalf.  The 
letter  was  signed  by  the  following  persons :  Christoffel  Van 
Sandt,  Gerret  Kroesen,  Benjamin  Corsen,  Abraham  Van  der 
Grift,  Abraham  Bennet,  Henry  Croesen,  John  Dorrelant,  Ger- 
ret Wynkoop,  Abraham  Bennet,  Jr.,  John  Slegt,  Nicholas  Wyn- 
koop,  Abraham  Stevens,  Dirk  Hogelant,  Jost  van  Pelt,  John 
Kroesen,  Gideon  de  Camp,  Franz  Kroesen,  Jacob  Van  Sandt, 
and  Hendrick  Brees. 

Instead  of  sending  the  promised  minister,  the  Rev.  John 
Wilhelmius  wrote  another  letter,  on  March  1,  1735,  to  the  "Rev- 
erend Consistory  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  in  Bucks 
County."    He  wrote  in  part  as  follows : 

"It  was  very  agreeable  to  me  to  learn  from  your  letter  of  October  30, 
1734,  that  you  approve  my  selection  of  the  young  man,  who  is  now 
about  26  years  of  age  and  still  unmarried.  He  is  already  well  advanced 
with  his  studies.  He  knows  the  learned  languages,  Latin,  Greek  and 
Hebrew  so  well,  that  he  is  giving  instruction  in  them  to  others.  He  is 
also   well   advanced   in   divinity,   but   must   still   study   somewhat   in   the 


50  LIFE   AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.   PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS 

university.  He  is  a  pious  young  man,  who  is  zealous  and  burning  with 
desire  to  preach  the  name  of  Jesus  in  the  New  World.  I  asked  him  to 
sign  a  paper,  by  which  he  obligated  himself,  as  soon  as  his  studies  are 
completed,  to  go  to  you  and  to  accept  your  call,  or,  if  through  unex- 
pected events  he  should  be  prevented  from  doing  this,  that  he  will  re- 
pay the  money  advanced  to  him  with  double  interest.  I  hope  that  this 
undertaking  will  have  a  blessed  outcome." 

This  letter  was  brought  to  America  by  the  Rev.  Maurice 
Goetschy,  who  with  a  Swiss  colony  was  at  that  time  in  Holland, 
ready  to  depart  for  Pennsylvania.  He  did  arrive  in  Philadelphia 
on  May  29,  1735,  but  he  was  sick  and  died  on  the  day  following 
his  landing.  The  letter,  however,  which  he  carried,  reached  its 
destination  safely. 

Another  set  of  letters  was  exchanged  between  Wilhelmius  and 
the  Bucks  county  people  in  1736,  Wilhelmius  writing  on  July  4, 
1736,  and  the  Neshaminy  Consistory  answering  him  on  Decem- 
ber 10,  1736.  In  this  last  letter  they  informed  Wilhelmius  that 
they  were  looking  forward  to  the  coming  of  their  pastor,  that 
they  were  ready  to  pay  him  the  salary  they  had  agreed  upon,  ex- 
cept the  twenty  pounds  by  a  neighboring  place  ;  but  they  expressed 
the  hope  that  on  his  arrival  they  would  fall  in  line,  especially 
after  they  had  heard  the  new  pastor  preach.  They  reported  that 
their  own  pledges  were  raised  to  sixty  pounds  through  new  ar- 
rivals, and  that  they  were  willing  to  pay  his  passage  money.  They 
were  unable  to  do  more  than  this,  because  the  thirty  or  forty 
acres  of  land  they  intended  to  buy,  together  with  the  parsonage 
which  had  to  be  erected,  would  cost  more  than  two  hundred 
pounds. 

Finally,  on  May  22,  1737,  Wilhelmius  was  able  to  write  to  the 
Consistory  at  Neshaminy  that  their  young  pastor  had  been  or- 
dained at  Groningen  and  would  sail  with  Captain  Stedman  for 
Philadelphia.  He  expressed  the  hope  that  he  would  prove  a  use- 
ful minister  in  proclaiming  the  truth,  in  guarding  against  error 
and  in  building  up  the  Church  of  Christ  in  their  midst.  Thus, 
after  waiting  like  Jacob  for  seven  years,  their  hopes  and  prayers 
were  at  last  realized. 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  51 


THE  LIFE  OF  DORSIUS  IN  EUROPE,   I7II-I737. 

The  young  man  who  had  thus  been  secured  for  service  in 
Pennsylvania  was  the  Rev.  Peter  Henry  Dorsius.  From  his 
entry  in  the  matriculation  book  of  the  university  of  Leyden  it 
appears  that  he  was  born  at  Meurs  (or  Moers,  as  it  is  spelled 
today)  a  small  town  of  about  five  thousand  inhabitants  near  the 
Lower  Rhine,  in  the  district  of  Duesseldorf. 

A  letter,  which  the  writer  addressed  in  1914,  to  the  pastor  of 
the  Reformed  Church  at  Moers,  brought  to  light  the  following 
information  regarding  the  family  of  Dorsius.  Peter  Henry 
Dorsius  was  a  son  of  John  Henry  Dorsius,  or  Dorschius,  as  he 
is  called  in  the  record.  John  Henry  "Dorschius,"  then  a  widow- 
er, married  Petronella  Gravers  of  Altkirch  on  September  15. 
1708.  The  following  children  were  born  to  this  couple,  as  noted 
in  the  baptismal  record:  (1)  Alathea,  baptized  November  15. 
1709;  (2)  Peter  Henry,  baptized  January  2,  1711 ;  (3)  Abraham, 
baptized  August  5.  1712;  (4)  Isaac,  baptized  December  22.  1713; 
died  in  infancy;  (5)  Isaac,  baptized  March  8,  1715.  While  his 
younger  brother  Isaac  entered  the  gymnasium  (college)  at 
Moers  on  May  5.  1727.  the  name  of  Peter  Henry  Dorsius  cannot 
be  found  there,  which  means  that  he  received  his  classical  train- 
ing somewhere  else. 

On  April  5.  1734.  Dorsius  matriculated  at  the  university  of 
Groningen.  The  deputies  of  the  Synods  of  North  and  South  Hol- 
land first  heard  of  him  through  the  Rev.  John  Wilhelmius,  on 
October  31,  1735,  when  they  had  an  interview  with  the  latter  at 
Rotterdam  about  the  Pennsylvania  churches.  At  that  time  Wil- 
helmius reported  to  them  that,  at  the  request  of  some  merchants 
in  New  Netherland,  he  had  engaged  "a  pious  young  man"  to 
prepare  himself  at  the  university  of  Groningen  for  the  service  of 
the  Dutch  Reformed  congregation  near  Philadelphia.  Professors 
Driessen  and  Van  Velsen  at  the  university  gave  laudable  testi- 
monials regarding  him  and  reported  that  he  would  probably  be 
ready  in  the  following  spring  to  go  to  Pennsylvania. 

But  instead  of  going  to  Pennsylvania  in  the  year  1736,  he 
went  to  the  university  of  Leyden  to  finish  his  studies  there.  On 
September  17,  1736,  he  matriculated  at  Leyden  as :    "P'etrus  Hen- 


52  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE  REV.   PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS 

ricus  Dorsius,  Meursahus,  25,T."  This  entry  means  that  he  studied 
at  Leyden  as  a  candidate  of  theology,  was  twenty-five  years  of 
age  when  he  entered  the  university  and  reported  his  home  as 
being  Meurs,  along  the  lower  Rhine.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
a  few  months  later,  on  December  27,  1736,  Michael  Schlatter  of 
St.  Gall  matriculated  at  Leyden,  also  as  a  theological  student,  al- 
though Schlatter  makes  no  reference  to  Dorsius  as  having  known 
him,  when  he  met  him  in  Pennsylvania  in  1746. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  deputies  on  March  11-14,  1737,  Wil- 
helmius  reported  that  Dorsius  was  about  to  be  examined  and 
would  soon  leave  for  Pennsylvania.  He  suggested  that  he  was 
the  proper  person  through  whom  the  deputies  could  secure  re- 
liable information  regarding  Reformed  churches  in  Pennsylvania. 

On  June  11,  1737,  Dorsius  himself  appeared  before  the  depu- 
ties at  The  Hague.  He  announced  that  he  was  ready  to  leave 
for  Pennsylvania  on  June  27th  (old  style)  with  Captain  Sted- 
man.  He  stated  that  he  had  accepted  a  call  of  the  Reformed  con- 
gregation in  Bucks  county,  at  a  salary  of  £60,  to  which  £20 
more  would  probably  be  added  by  another  congregation,  as  soon 
as  it  could  be  organized.  Dorsius  also  asked  the  deputies  whether 
he  could  be  of  service  to  them.  They  then  requested  him  first, 
to  investigate  the  conditions  of  the  Reformed  churches  there  and 
secondly,  to  report  to  them  regarding  them. 

The  last  events  before  his  departure,  his  trip  across  the  ocean 
and  his  first  experiences  in  Pennsylvania  were  described  by 
Dorsius  in  a  letter,  which  he  wrote  to  the  Synodical  Deputies  in 
June  1749.^    He  then  wrote  in  part  as  follows : 

"It  is  about  twelve  years  ago,  after  I  had  been  received,  on  April  30, 
1737,  by  the  Classis  of  Schieland  at  Rotterdam,  as  a  candidate  of  the- 
ology and  on  May  29th  of  the  same  year  had  been  ordained  by  the  very 
learned  faculty  of  Groningen,  as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  that  on 
July  11  [1737,  new  style],  I  undertook  the  great  and  dangerous  journey 
from  Rotterdam  to  Pennsylvania,  when  we  did  not  arrive  safely  at 
Philadelphia  till  October  Sth,  with  the  loss,  however,  of  many  per- 
sons, who  had  died  at  sea  and  had  been  buried  in  the  great  ocean. 
There  I  inquired  immediately  after  my  location,  when  I  learned  right 
at  the  beginning  that  I,  as  well  as  others,  had  been  woefully  deceived 
in  my  expectations,  being  compelled  to  preach  for  one  year  in  the 
barn  of  one  farmer  after  another,  because  there  was  no  house  of  God. 
At  the  same  time  I  had  to  take  my  lodging  with  one  family  after  an- 

5  The  original  is  in  the  archives  of  the  General  Synod  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
formed Church,   at   The  Hague,   Holland. 


LIFE   AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  53 

Other  in  the  backwoods  [bosch],  as  they  are  accustomed  to  call  them 
in  that  land.  This  made  me  think  of  returning  speedily  [to  Holland], 
but  I  was  kept  back  by  my  conscience  and  the  example  of  the  early 
Christians.  Through  the  encouraging  and  cheering  letters  of  the  very 
learned  Rev.  Ernest  Engelbert  Probsting,  p.  t.,  clerk  of  the  Synod, 
written  to  me  in  the  name  and  by  order  of  the  Reverend  Deputies  of 
both  Synods,  I  was  much  strengthened  to  continue  the  difficult  work 
of  the  ministry,  which   I  had  undertaken." 

A  reference  to  Rupp's  Thirty  Thousand  Names,  shows  that 
Captain  John  Stedman  arrived  at  Philadelphia,  with  the  ship 
Saint  Andrew  Galley  from  Rotterdam  September  26.  1737.  old 
style,  (or  October  5th.  new  style,  as  stated  by  Dorsius).  For 
some  reason,  however,  the  name  of  Dorsius  does  not  appear 
among  those  who  qualified  at  the  court  house  in  Philadelphia  on 
that  day.  The  ship  brought  another  Dutch  candidate  of  the- 
ology, John  Herman  Van  Basten,  who  preached  in  the  churches 
at  Jamaica,  Oyster  Bay  and  Newtown,  1739-40.  A  third  min- 
ister came  with  the  same  ship,  John  Philip  Streiter.  He  preached 
later  in  the  Lutheran  churches  at  Indianfield,  Old  Goshenhoppen 
and  Alsace,  near  Reading:. 


MINISTRY   OF   DORSIUS,    I737-I743. 

True  to  their  word,  the  Dutch  people  of  Neshaminy  paid  the 
passage  money  of  their  newly-arrived  minister  on  September  28, 
1737,  only  two  days  after  his  arrival.  The  bill  of  Captain  Sted- 
man and  a  receipt  of  Dorsius  are  still  preserved  among  the 
papers  of  the  congregation.  The  captain  charged  him  £15  for 
transporting  him  and  his  goods.  £1.10  for  duty  in  England  and 
£2.10  for  fresh  provisions  in  England,  a  total  of  £19.  On 
September  28th,  Dorsius  gave  his  consistory  a  receipt  for 
£26.15.2,  which  covered  all  his  traveling  expenses. 

Shortly  after  the  arrival  of  the  new  pastor  (in  the  course  of 
the  year  1738)  efforts  were  made  to  collect  money  for  the  erec- 
tion of  a  meeting  house.  A  badly  torn  paper,  which  contained 
the  names  of  fifty  subscribers,  is  still  preserved.  The  names  of 
only  twenty-five  subscribers  are  legible.  They  signed  for 
£61.0.6.  If  the  other  twenty-five  gave  just  as  much,  the  total 
amounted  probably  to    £122.     Several   receipts  throw   light   on 


54  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE  REV.    PETER   HENRY  DORSIUS 

the  cost  of  the  building.  On  January  8,  1739,  Evan  Thomas,  the 
builder,  gave  receipt  for  £25.12.6.  On  April  28,  1738,  Henry 
Croesen,  the  treasurer,  was  ordered  to  pay  £2.5.10,  to  William 
Moses  for  lime.  On  May  15,  1738,  Joseph  Roberts  receipted  for 
£1.14.2,  for  sawing  logs.  On  March  17,  1738,  Isaac  Williams 
handed  in  a  receipt  for  £9,  for  boards  sold  and  delivered,  and 
on  March  14,  1739,  William  Lukens  gave  receipt  for  £5.0.10, 
for  lime  "brought  at  ye  Dutch  congregation."  From  these  re- 
ceipts we  may  conclude  that  the  building  operations  continued 
approximately  from  April  1738  to  March  1739. 

Another  list,  still  preserved,  contains  the  names  and  sums, 
subscribed  by  twenty-four  persons  towards  the  purchase  of  a 
church  farm.  The  following  persons  subscribed  a  total  of 
£96.5.0  for  this  purpose:  Gerret  Kroesen,  Benjamin  Korsen, 
Frans  Kroese,  Hendrik  Kroese,  Abraham  Bennet,  Jr.,  Jacobus 
van  Sant,  Jr.,  Jan  Kroese,  Derrick  Kroese,  Derrick  Hooghlandt, 
Nicolas  Winkoop,  Gerret  Winkoop,  Jane  Wagelom,  Falker 
Vaestrat,  Abraham  Stevens,  Jost  Boskerk,  Gerret  Winkoop,  Jr., 
Jan  Dorlandt,  Cornells  Kroese,  Cornells  Winkoop,  Jacob  Bennet, 
Jr.,  Lambert  Dorlandt,  Isaak  Bennet,  Hendrik  Slegt,  Lambert 
Van  Dyck. 

On  January  18,  1739,  Gerret  Hugtenbergh  made  an  agreement 
with  Abraham  Van  der  Grift  and  Henry  Kroesen  to  sell  them  a 
tract  of  land  "lying  in  Bybery,  in  the  county  of  Philadelphia," 
containing  ninety-six  acres  for  £245,  P'ennsylvania  currency. 
It  was  bounded  as  follows :  "Beginning  at  a  corner  by  land  of 
Nathaniel  Britteins,  thence  northwest  by  the  said  land  to  a  cor- 
ner of  land  of  Jennewell  Coopers,  thence  by  the  said  land  north- 
east to  land  of  Margaret  Grooms,  thence  by  the  said  land  south 
to  land  of  William  Homers,  thence  by  the  said  land  and  land  of 
Thomas  Womslys  southwest  to  the  place  of  beginning." 

Having  traced  the  history  of  the  congregation  to  this  point,  we 
must  return  to  the  question,  how  Dorsius  carried  out  the  com- 
mission of  the  Synodical  Deputies  to  investigate  and  report  upon 
the  condition  of  the  Reformed  churches  of  Pennsylvania.  In 
order  to  make  the  report  of  Dorsius  more  definite,  the  Deputies 
concluded  to  send  him  a  set  of  questions.  A  circular  letter  to  the 
Classes,  constituting  the  Synod  of  South  Holland,  was  drawn  up. 
Their  answers  were  then  collated  and  on  their  basis  a  set  of  thir- 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  55 

teen  questions  was  prepared,  which  were  ready  to  be  sent  off  in 
May  1738.  On  June  9,  1738,  Rev.  E.  Probsting,  clerk  of  the 
Deputies,  forwarded  these  questions,  accompanied  by  a  letter,  to 
Dorsius.  At  the  same  meeting  of  the  Deputies,  in  June  1738,  a 
letter  arrived,  written  by  Dorsius  from  Bucks  county,  on  March 
1,  1738.'^  It  contained  some  (though  rather  inaccurate  and  mis- 
leading) information  about  the  Reformed  churches  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. 

About  Philadelphia,  Dorsius  reported  that  it  had  no  (Re- 
formed) minister  and  was  not  able  to  support  one.  We  know 
that  Mr.  Boehm  was  the  regular  pastor  at  Philadelphia,  who 
preached  there  once  a  month.  About  Germantown  he  reported, 
that  they  had  a  nice  church,  but  a  miserable  preacher,  who  was 
inclined  to  the  Quakers.  This  refers  no  doubt  to  John  Bechtel, 
but  that  he  was  inclined  to  the  Quakers  is  fictitious.  About  young 
Goetschius,  son  of  the  Swiss  minister,  who  reached  Philadelphia 
in  1735,  he  reported  that,  although  unordained,  he  was  preaching 
and  administering  the  sacraments.  This  is  confirmed  by  other 
documents.  Regarding  Conestoga  he  reported  that  two  unedu- 
cated laymen  were  preaching  there,  whom  the  people  refused  to 
hear  any  longer,  because  they  were  teaching  Quaker  and  other 
doctrines.  These  two  laymen  were  most  likely  John  Conrad 
Tempelman  and  John  Jacob  Hock.  Here  again  the  Quaker 
teaching  is  purely  imaginary,  all  other  sources  testifying  the 
very  opposite.  They  were  most  faithful  and  true  to  the  Re- 
formed standards.  He  also  refers  to  Peter  Miller,  who  had 
fallen  away  from  the  Reformed  faith  and  had  carried  over  with 
him  to  the  Dunkers  (so  he  said),  three  hundred  souls  of  whom 
many  were  ready  to  return,  if  they  could  be  supplied  with  ortho- 
dox preachers.  The  number  "three  hundred"  is  greatly  exag- 
gerated. There  were  hardly  three  dozens.  Boehm  reports^  ten 
families  as  having  gone  over  to  the  Dunkers  with  Miller.  Re- 
garding Bucks  county,  Dorsius  reports  the  building  of  a  new 
church,  to  which  we  have  already  referred.  He  also  stated  that 
there  was  no  necessity  to  consult  in  church  matters  the  governor 
of  Pennsylvania  or  the  Bishop  of  London.     Finally  he  empha- 

6  Thi.s  letter  is  preserved  in  the  minutes  of  the  Synodical  Deputies,  now 
at  The  Hague. 

7  See  Life  and  Letters  of  the  Rev.  John  Philip  Boehm,  Philadelphia,  1916, 
p.   275. 


56  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE  REV.   PETER   HENRY  DORSIUS 

sized  the  need  of  five  or  six  orthodox  German  Reformed 
ministers. 

How  superficial  this  report  was  can  be  seen  from  the  fact  that 
it  made  absolutely  no  reference  to  the  remarkable  work  of  the 
Rev.  John  Philip  Boehm,  then  the  only  ordained  German  Re- 
formed minister  in  the  province.  Moreover,  there  is  in  this  re- 
port hardly  a  single  item  that  is  entirely  correct,  and  many  of 
them  are  but  half  true.  There  was,  however,  in  the  report  one 
valuable  suggestion,  for  which  Dorsius  deserves  credit.  He  sug- 
gested, that  one  man  be  appointed  for  Pennsylvania,  whose  duty 
it  should  be  to  visit  the  churches  annually,  ascertain  how  much 
they  could  contribute  to  a  minister's  salary  and  then  report  the 
deficiency  to  Holland,  that  it  might  be  supplied  from  the  funds 
in  the  hands  of  the  Deputies.  The  average  annual  salary  of 
ministers  he  reported  as  being  sixty  to  eighty  pounds.  This  sug- 
gestion of  Dorsius  regarding  a  "visitor  of  the  churches"  was 
actually  carried  out  by  Michael  Schlatter,  sent  as  such  to  Penn- 
sylvania by  the  Church  of  Holland  in  1746. 

In  October  1738,  the  Deputies  concluded  to  write  to  Dorsius, 
requesting  him  to  find  out  how  much  the  Reformed  people  in 
the  colony  were  willing  to  contribute  to  the  salaries  of  pastors. 
If  the  answers  were  satisfactory,  they  were  willing  to  send  over 
five  ministers,  as  requested  by  Dorsius.  On  December  20,  1738. 
Do.  Probsting  wrote  a  letter  to  Dorsius.  in  which  he  acquainted 
him  with  the  resolutions  passed  by  the  Synod  of  South  Holland 
regarding  the  Pennsylvania  churches.  In  this  letter  he  also  ad- 
vised Dorsius  that  Count  Zinzendorf  intended  to  go  to  Pennsyl- 
vania and  he  warned  him  against  his  teaching,  sending  him  at 
the  same  time  copies  of  the  books  published  by  Zinzendorf,  as 
well  as  a  Pastoral  Letter,  issued  by  the  Classis  of  Amsterdam 
against  him. 

In  March  1739,  Wilhelmius  reported  that  he  had  received  a 
letter  from  Dorsius,  in  which  he  declared  that  his  work  was  pros- 
perous and  that  he  engaged  in  it  with  much  satisfaction,  as  he 
enjoyed  the  respect  and  love  of  his  people. 

While  Dorsius  did  not  deign  to  mention  Boehm  in  his  first 
letter  to  the  Deputies,  the  latter  refers  to  him  in  a  letter,  written 
about  the  same  time,  March  10,  1738.  to  the  Classis  of  Amster- 
dam.    He  writes  :® 

8   See  Life  and  Letters  of  Boehm,  p.    259f. 


LIFE   AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  57 

"Last  fall  Do.  Dorsius  arrived  as  the  regular  minister  of  the  Low 
Dutch  congregation  at  Neshaminy  in  Bucks  county.  With  him  there 
came  another,  named  Van  Basten,  who  however  is  not  yet  ordained. 
Nevertheless,  he  travels  about  in  the  country  here  and  there.  He  says 
that  he  has  been  sent  from  Holland,  but  thus  far  he  has  not  caused  us 
any  pleasure  at  all." 

When  the  questions  of  the  Deputies,  sent  to  Pennsylvania  in 
June  1738,  reached  Dorsius,  he  invited  Boehm  to  a  conference  at 
his  house.  This  conference  took  place  on  November  28,  1738, 
when  "his  Reverence  showed  me  his  letters  from  the  Christian 
Synods  of  North  and  South  Holland,  in  which  I  saw  that  these 
Christian  Synods  had  appointed  his  Reverence  as  their  commis- 
sioner and  inspector  of  the  German  churches  in  Pennsylvania. 
Then  his  Reverence  requested  me  to  make  a  report,  which  I  was 
ready  to  do,  out  of  due  respect  to  the  Christian  Synods."'' 
Dorsius  asked  Boehm  to  report  on  three  questions : 

(1)  How  many  German  Reformed  congregations  there  were 
in  Pennsylvania  and  how  far  they  were  from  each  other? 

(2)  How  many  elders,  deacons  and  communicants  there  were 
in  each  of  his  congregations  and  how  many  congregations  were 
served  by  him  ? 

(3)  How  each  congregation  was  supplied  with  schoolmasters 
and  precentors  ? 

In  answer  to  these  questions,  Boehm  prepared  an  elaborate  re- 
port, dated  January  14,  1739,  in  which  he  gave  accurate  informa- 
tion about  nine  congregations,  their  members,  elders,  church 
buildings  and  schoolmasters.  How  kindly  Boehm  felt  towards 
Dorsius  at  this  time  is  evident  from  the  following  reference, 
sent  to  the  Classis  of  Amsterdam  in  a  letter,  dated  March  16, 
1739  :i" 

"His  Reverence,  Mr.  Dorsius,  whom  the  Christian  Synods  have 
now  been  pleased  to  appoint  as  superintendent^^  of  our  true  Church  in 
Pennsylvania,  shows  indeed  a  real  zeal  faithfully  to  do  all  he  can  for 
the  Church  of  Jesus  in  this  country.  To  this  end  God  has  blessed  him 
with    wisdom.      May   the    God    of   all    strength    further    increase    in    his 

9  See  Life  and  Letters  of  Boehm,  p.   262. 

10  See  Life  and  Letters  of  Boehm.  p.    264. 

11  The  Deputies  had  not  appointed  Dorsius  either  as  superintendent  or  in- 
spector, because  botli  of  tliese  offices  were  unknown  to  tlie  constitution  of 
their  church.  Dorsius  made  use  of  this  title  in  his  communication  to  Boehm 
(See  Life  of  Boehm.  p.   271).      In  a  letter  of  May   9,   1743,  the  Classis  stated 

distinctly  :  "This  is  certain,  he  is  no  insjiector  of  the  church  in  your  regions,' 
p.  373.  The  Deputies  had  not  sent  Dorsius  to  Pennsylvania  and  hence 
they  had  not  appointed  him  to  any  ofHce  whatsoever.  They  had  simply 
asked  him  for  some  information. 


58  LIFE   AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS 

Reverence  this  zeal  and  wisdom,  so  that,  as  a  true  instrument  in  God's 
hand,  he  may  serve  our  true  Church  untiringly  vv^ith  manly  steadfast- 
ness to  the  praise  of  God  and  the  increase  of  the  Kingdom  of  our 
Redeemer." 

Another  request  for  information  was  submitted  by  Dorsius  to 
Boehm  on  December  6,  1739,  when  he  asked  him  in  the  name  of 
the  Synods  to  inquire  "what  each  family  is  wiUing  to  contribute 
towards  the  support  of  a  minister  within  the  congregation  or  to 
a  yearly  salary,  in  order  that  the  friendly  request  of  the  Reverend 
Synod  be  complied  with." 

In  answer  to  this  request,  Boehm  made  a  long  journey  of  about 
three  hundred  miles  in  the  depth  of  a  severe  winter,  during  the 
months  of  January,  February  and  March  1740,  to  interview  the 
Reformed  congregations.  As  a  result  he  reported  of  seventeen 
congregations  pledges  to  the  amount  of  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  pounds  and  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  bushels  of  oats. 
He  made  also  additional  reports,  in  which  he  showed  how  these 
congregations  might  be  served  by  six  ministers  in  six  pastoral 
charges. 

On  the  basis  of  these  reports  of  Boehm,  Dorsius  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Synods,  on  March  4.  1740,  which  was  read  before  the 
Deputies  in  their  meeting  of  September  11-15,  1740.  In  this  he 
answered  their  question  as  to  the  amounts  the  congregations  were 
willing  to  contribute  to  ministerial  salaries.  It  should,  however, 
be  noted  that  Dorsius  apparently  gave  Boehm  no  credit  for  the 
work  he  had  done,  but  reaped  all  the  praise  of  the  Deputies  for 
himself.  It  is  not  surprising  that  this  conduct  was  soon  followed 
by  bad  consequences.  When  Boehm  heard  that  Dorsius,  instead 
of  sending  his  reports  to  Holland,  had  constructed  another  report 
upon  their  basis,  he  felt  much  offended.  This  is  clearly  indicated 
by  Boehm.  At  a  later  interview  he  had  with  Dorsius,  he  asked 
him  whether  he  had  sent  his  report  to  Holland.  Dorsius 
answered : 

"No,  he  had  it  in  his  trunk,  but  he  had  written  to  the  Christian 
Synods  with  regard  to  these  things.  I  did  not  like  this,  for  I  had  been 
riding  through  the  country  about  three  hundred  miles  in  the  severest 
winter  season.  We  had  some  words  between  us;  however,  nothing  un- 
seemly. Among  other  things  his  Reverence  remarked,  the  affair  had 
been  entrusted  to  him  and  he  knew  what  to  do.  He  had  kept  the  re- 
port for  his  own  safety.  To  which  I  answered:  'To  me  it  does  not 
seem  right  that  the  light  which  makes  clear  the  whole  condition  of  our 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  59 

congregations  to  our  devout  Church  Fathers,  who  manifest  such  a 
holy  zeal  for  our  churches,  should  be  seen  by  your  Reverence  only  and 
kept  in  your  trunk,  and  not  brought  to  those  who  desire  to  see  it;  for 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  report,  together  with  your  additional  report, 
should  have   been   sent   to   them."'^ 

Some  time  afterwards  some  men  from  Goshenhoppen  came  to 
see  Boehm  and  asked  him  whether  the  reports  had  been  sent  off 
by  Dorsius.  Boehm  answered  truthfully  that  Dorsius  had  told 
him  that  they  were  in  his  trunk,  but  that  he  had  written,  in  his 
own  words,  about  them  to  Holland.  When  Dorsius  came  on  a 
visit  to  Goshenhoppen,  on  September  24,  1740,  the  elders  asked 
him  about  the  reports  which  they  had  given  to  Boehm,  whether 
they  had  been  sent  to  Holland.  Dorsius  said :  Yes.  Then 
they  confronted  him  with  the  statement  of  Boehm,  that  they  were 
in  his  trunk.  This  made  Dorsius  furious  and  he  exclaimed;  "If 
Boehm  says  that  I  have  not  sent  the  letters  which  he  wrote  re- 
garding the  church  to  Holland,  he  lies  like  a  scoundrel."  These 
and  other  contemptuous  words,  uttered  by  Dorsius  at  that  oc- 
casion, were  of  course  related  to  Boehm  and  resulted  in  a  com- 
plete breach  in  their  friendship  and  intercourse.  Henceforth 
Boehm  refused  to  send  any  more  letters  to  Holland  through 
Dorsius,  but  he  transmitted  his  reports,  through  the  Dutch  Re- 
formed ministers  of  New  York,  to  the  Classis  of  Amsterdam. 

There  was  another  reason  for  the  break  between  Dorsius  and 
Boehm  and  that  was  the  former's  attitude  towards  young  Goet- 
schius.  Boehm  regarded  him  as  a  disturber  of  the  peace,  who 
intruded  into  a  number  of  his  congregations,  trying  to  take  them 
away  from  Boehm,  especially  Tulpehocken,  Oley  and  Skippack. 
Dorsius  on  the  other  hand  encouraged  him  in  his  irregular  work. 
There  was,  it  is  true,  a  reconciliation  between  Boehm  and  Goet- 
schius,  at  the  home  of  Dorsius,  in  February  1740,  when  he  asked 
Boehm's  forgiveness,  which  the  latter  gladly  granted  him.  But, 
as  Goetschius  did  not  keep  his  promise  to  stay  away  from  Boehm's 
congregations,  there  was  soon  again  bitter  feeling.  When  in 
1739  the  deputies  of  the  Synods  insisted  that  the  churches 
should  dismiss  the  unordained  preachers,  before  they  could  ex- 
pect assistance  from  Holland,  Goetschius  gave  up  his  preaching, 
went  to  Dorsius  and  studied  with  him  for  a  year  and  was  then 
ordained,  on  April  7,  1741,  by  Dorsius,  assisted  by  Frelinghuisen 

12  Life  and  Letters  of  Boehm,  p.   321. 


60  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS 

and  Gilbert  Tennent,  the  Presbyterian  minister  at  New  Bruns- 
wick, New  Jersey.  This  unauthorized  action  was  severely  con- 
demned by  Boehm  and  met  with  similar  disapproval  in  Holland.^'' 
Another  important  undertaking  was  committed  to  Dorsius  in 
1739.  Through  a  letter  written  by  Rev.  E.  Probsting  on  May  3, 
1739,  Dorsius  together  with  Dr.  Diemer,  of  Philadelphia,  were 
given  a  power  of  attorney  to  prosecute  Reiff,  in  order  to  com- 
pel him  to  give  an  accounting  of  the  moneys  collected  by  him  in 
Holland.  But,  as  Diemer  himself  was  deeply  involved  in  the 
case,  the  appointment  was  unfortunate  and  no  results  were 
achieved,  except  that  some  letters  were  exchanged  between 
Diemer  and  the  Deputies.  On  November  18,  1742,  Diemer  wrote 
to  the  Synod  :^"' 

"I  received  in  the  year  1740  a  letter,  which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ernest 
Probsting,  Deputy  of  the  Reverend  Synod,  had  written  at  Heusden, 
under  date  May  3,  1739,  and  I  received  besides,  in  the  aforesaid  year, 
in  December,  a  copy  of  a  special  letter  to  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania, 
dated  April  15,  1739,  at  The  Hague,  in  which  authority  was  given  to 
Rev.  Mr.  Dorsius  and  rhyself  to  prosecute  the  still  pending  suit  against 
Jacob  Reiff,  of  Skippack,  in  Pennsylvania,  in  which  an  appeal  was  made 
by  the  Reverend  Deputies  to  the  Governor.  Immediately  on  the  re- 
ceipt of  the  letter  aforesaid,  I  was  informed  that  his  Excellency,  the 
Governor,  promised  to  assist  us,  but  the  circumstances  of  the  war  be- 
tween the  English  and  the  Spanish  crowns  [1739-1742]  have  until  now 
prevented  such  aid,  on  account  of  many  special  engagements." 

On  December  16,  1740,  Dorsius  was  married  to  Janneka  (Jane) 
Hooghland,  daughter  of  Derrick  Hooghland.  They  had  three 
children:  (1)  Maria,  baptized  Dec.  26,  1742;  (2)  Jannetie,  bap- 
tized Jan.  13,  1745,  and  (3)  Cornelia  Charlotte,  baptized  Oct. 
5,  1746.     These  baptisms  are  entered  in  his  own  record. 

In  the  year  1741,  the  Deputies  sent  one  hundred  and  thirty  Ger- 
man Bibles  to  Pennsylvania  which  cost  them  £l,18s.9d.,  and 
which  they  had  secured  at  Frankford-on-the-Main.  They  were 
sent  through  Messrs.  Hope,  merchants  at  Rotterdam.  They  con- 
signed them  in  part  to  Do.  Dorsius,  in  part  to  Do.  Frelinghuisen, 
of  Raritan,  New  Jersey.  x\s  a  result  neither  of  them  able  to 
get  them.  On  February  16,  1744,  Dorsius  wrote  to  the  Deputies 
regarding  these  Bibles  :^^ 

13  The  Classis  of  Amsterdam  compelled  Goetschius  to  be  reordained  in 
1748.  See  Corwin,  Manual  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  America.  4th  ed., 
1902,    p.    491. 

14  The  original  is  in  The  Hague  archives.     Its  catalogue  number  is  74,  I.  38. 

15  The  original  is  at  The  Hague.      Catalogue  number  74,   I,   20. 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  61 

"The  High  German  Bibles  which  were  sent  to  Do.  Frehnghuisen  and 
to  myself,  to  distribute  them  among  the  poor  High  Germans  in  this 
country,  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  thus  far,  although  I  was  twice  in 
Philadelphia  and  tried  to  secure  them.  The  reasons  given  were  that 
the  chests  were  not  properly  marked  and  did  not  contain  my  name. 
But  these  are  only  excuses,  for  the  captain  who  brought  them  no  doubt 
gave  information  regarding  them,  as  he  also  brought  the  letters  of  the 
Reverend  ministers  of  Rotterdam,  namely  Mr.  John  Wilhelmius, 
Doctor  of  Theology,  and  Rev.  Van  der  Kemp,  Deputy  of  the  Synod. 
On  one  of  the  chests  is  written  simply  'Libri  Compacti'  and  on  the 
other  '50  Bibles.'  For  this  reason  inquiries  should  be  made  of  the 
gentleman  to  whom  they  were  handed  to  send  them  to  Pennsylvania, 
and  he  should  be  asked  to  write,  with  the  first  opportunity,  to  Benjamin 
Shoemaker,  merchant  at  Philadelphia  and  correspondent  of  the  shippers 
in    Rotterdam." 


VISIT    OF    DORSIUS    TO    HOLLAND,    MAY    1 743 JANUARY     1/44. 

In  September  1743,  the  Deputies  of  the  Synods  were  much  sur- 
prised to  hear  that  Do.  Dorsius  had  arrived  in  Holland.  He  had 
left  Nev^  York  on  May  26,  1743,  and  had  arrived  at  Amsterdam 
on  July  14th.  Shortly  afterwards  he  appeared  before  the  Synod 
of  North  Holland,  held  at  Hoorn.  July  26-27th.  He  made  a  re- 
port to  Synod  regarding  the  condition  of  the  Reformed  churches 
in  Pennsylvania.  On  September  17-19,  1743,  he  appeared  before 
the  Deputies  at  The  Hague.  They  questioned  him  closely  about 
a  number  of  things.  They  asked  him,  first  of  all,  what  would  be- 
come of  the  German  Bibles  in  his  absence.  He  answered  that,  if 
they  should  be  delivered,  they  would  be  entirely  safe  at  his  home 
until  his  return.  They  then  inquired  w^hat  he  and  Dr.  Diemer 
had  done  about  the  Reifif  case.  He  answered,  that  he  had  seen 
Dr.  Diemer  repeatedly,  but  he  did  not  seem  to  be  in  a  hurry  about 
it,  and,  as  far  as  he  was  able  to  tell,  nothing  had  been  accom- 
plished. But,  he  added,  that  on  his  journey  to  New  York  he  had 
interviewed  Dr.  Diemer  again  and  he  had  told  him  that  he  had 
already  spent  twenty  pounds  in  this  afl^air  and  was  willing  to 
spend  more  to  bring  it  to  a  conclusion.  The  Deputies  then  asked, 
why  he  had  not  answered  their  letter  sent  to  him  and  Do.  Fre- 
hnghuisen in  1741.  He  replied  that  this  letter  had  never  reached 
him.  Finally  they  asked  him,  why  he  had  come  to  Holland.  He 
answered  that  he  wished  to  consult  the  Deputies  about  his  work. 


62  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS 

He  also  hoped  to  get  their  consent  either  to  leave  his  congrega- 
tion in  Bucks  county,  or  to  organize  another  congregation  in 
Philadelphia,  because  his  salary  was  insufficient  and  he  needed 
additional  means  for  his  subsistence.  His  salary  had  been  re- 
duced from  sixty-eight  to  forty  pounds.  He  then  gave  them  a 
long  report  about  the  condition  of  the  churches  in  Pennsylvania, 
which  he  made  as  gloomy  as  possible  and  thereby  defeated  his 
own  purpose.  He  reported  that  the  churches  were  constantly  de- 
creasing through  apostasy  and  the  remarkable  growth  of  the 
Moravians,  as  well  the  activities  of  Catholic  missionaries.  He 
.also  stated  that  he  could  see  no  hope  for  the  churches  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, unless  more  ministers  were  sent  there  and  they  were  guar- 
anteed a  sufficient  salary,  because  the  salaries  paid  them  were 
altogether  inadequate. 

In  spite  of  the  lengthy  report  given  by  Dorsius,  the  Deputies 
concluded  that  they  did  not  have  sufficient  light  regarding  the 
actual  condition  of  afifairs  in  Pennsylvania,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
help  the  churches  intelligently.  They,  therefore,  addressed  a  let- 
ter to  the  ministers  and  elders  of  the  Reformed  churches  of  Penn- 
sylvania, asking  them  to  give  the  Synods  of  Holland  definite  and 
detailed  information,  signed  by  the  various  consistories,  regarding 
their  actual  condition,  so  that  they  might  be  able  to  judge  by  what 
means  they  could  best  help  them.  They  also  inquired  whether  it 
would  be  possible  for  the  Reformed  churches  to  unite  with  the 
Scotch  Synod,  by  which  they  meant  the  Presbyterian  Synod  of 
Pennsylvania.  This  letter,  dated  September  20,  1743,  was  handed 
to  Dorsius.  Before  Dorsius  left,  the  Deputies  gave  him  thirty 
guilders  to  help  him  pay  his  traveling  expenses  to  Holland,  and 
also  twenty  guilders  to  pay  the  freight  of  the  Bibles  sent  to  Penn- 
sylvania. They  also  permitted  Dorsius  either  to  accept  another 
call  or  to  start  another  congregation. 

Dorsius  did  not  stay  in  Holland  longer  than  was  absolutely 
necessary.  In  a  letter,  written  to  the  Deputies  in  June  1749,  he 
thus  explains  his  reasons  for  his  hurried  return  :^® 

"I  could  not  tarry  in  Holland,  because  on  the  one  hand,  I  feared  that 
war  might  break  out  between  France  and  England,  which  would  render 
the  Spanish  Sea  which  we  had  to  cross  very  unsafe  and  dangerous  for 
travelers,  as  we  experienced  to  our  sorrow  in  the  spring,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  because  my  own  domestic  affairs  had  not  been  so  arranged 

16  The  original  is  in  The  Hague  archives,  74,   II,   12. 


LIFE   AND   WORK   OF   THE   REV.   PETER    HENRY   DORSIUS  63 

that  I  could  remain  any  longer  in  Holland.  Moreover  a  very  good 
opportunity  presented  itself  for  me  to  bear  the  expenses  of  the  journey 
more   easily   and   thus   to   return   home." 

Dorsius  left  Holland  on  October  19,  1743.  old  style,  and  ar- 
rived at  Philadelphia,  in  good  health  on  January  16,  1744. 


MINISTRY    OF    DORSIUS,    1 744- 1 748. 

Shortly  after  his  return,  on  February  16,  1744,  Dorsius  wrote 
a  letter  to  the  Deputies,  in  which  he  announced  his  safe  arrival 
in  Pennsylvania  and  declared  that  he  had  sent  off  the  letter  of  the 
Deputies  to  the  German  churches,  in  a  German  translation,  that 
he  had  consulted  with  two  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  in  Phila- 
delphia about  the  union  of  the  German  churches  with  the  Synod 
of  Philadelphia  and  that  they  had  promised  him  to  submit  the 
matter  to  the  next  meeting  of  the  Synod. ^^  He  also  reported  a 
conference  with  Dr.  Diemer,  who  had  promised  to  address  a  pe- 
tition to  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  regarding  the  Reiff  case. 

During  this  period  of  his  activity.  Dorsius  preached  repeatedly 
to  German  congregations  and  administered  the  Lord's  Supper  to 
them,  a  work  which  he  had  begun  even  before  his  journey  to 
Holland.  In  one  of  his  own  letters^*  he  reports  preaching  "free 
of  charge  several  times  at  Philadelphia,  either  in  the  Swedish 
church,  or  in  a  meeting  house,  hired  at  that  time  for  the  use  of 
the  German  congregation."  Several  church  records  refer  to  this 
missionary  activity.  Thus  the  New  Goshenhoppen  record  shows 
that  he  preached  and  baptized  there  on  September  24.  1740, 
August  30,  1741,  September  4.  1742,  and  on  May  5,  1744.^''  The 
Egypt  record  presents  evidence  that  he  preached  and  baptized 
children  at  Saucon  on  September  23,  1740;  while  the  letters  of 
Boehm  establish  his  presence  and  preaching  at  Germantown  on 
Easter  day  1744.  at  New  Goshenhoppen  on  May  6,  1744.  and  at 
Conestoga  on  July  8.  1744.  There  is  also  a  reference  to  a  journey 
to  the  Minisink  region.-" 

17  The  letters  exchanged  between  the  Deputies  and  the  Presbyterian  Synod 
of  Philadelphia  in  1744-1747,  were  published  in  full  by  the  Rev.  J.  I.  Good, 
D.D..  in  the  Journal  of  the  Presbyterian  Historical  Society.  Vol.  Ill,  pp. 
122-i37 

18  It  is  in  the  letter,  dated  June  1749. 

19  See  the  publication  of  this  record  by  the  writer  in  Mr.  Dotterer's  Perkio- 
men  Region.  Vol.  Ill,  p.  121f;  and  in  the  History  of  the  Goshenhoppen  Re- 
formed Charge,  p.   284f. 

20  See  Life  and  Letters  of  Boehm.  p.    339. 


64  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS 

We  have  no  information  about  Dorsius  during  the  year  1745. 
But  on  September  16,  1746,  the  Rev.  Michael  Schlatter,  sent  by 
the  Synods  of  Holland  to  organize  the  Reformed  churches  of 
Pennsylvania,  traveled  sixteen  miles  from  Philadelphia  to  Bucks 
county  to  interview  Dorsius,  to  whom  he  showed  his  instructions 
and  letters  from  the  synods.  Dorsius  received  him  "in  a  most 
friendly  and  fraternal  manner,"  offered  to  render  him  every  pos- 
sible assistance,  promised  to  organize  his  consistory  and  report  to 
him  the  result.  Schlatter  reports  that  the  elders  showed  him  a 
"new  stone  church,"  which  was  process  of  erection. ^^  In  his 
private  diary,  sent  to  Holland  in  December  1746,  Schlatter  gives 
the  first  intimation  that  there  was  trouble  in  his  congregation,  for 
he  writes :  "Of  Do.  Dorsius  I  cannot  report  anything  certain  at 
present,  inasmuch  as  I  will  not  believe  the  bad  reports  which  are 
here  and  there  circulated  about  him,  before  I  have  convinced 
myself  of  their  truth. "-- 

Dorsius  was  not  present  at  the  preliminary  meeting,  leading' 
to  the  organization  of  the  Coetus  (or  Convention)  of  the  Re- 
formed churches  of  Pennsylvania,  which  was  held  at  Philadelphia 
October  12,  1746.  But  he  informed  Schlatter  "in  a  friendly  letter, 
that  he  was  unable  to  attend  on  account  of  domestic  arrange- 
ments."-^ In  his  private  diary  Schlatter  explains  that  on  the  day 
of  the  conference-"'  the  wife  of  Dorsius  had  given  birth  to  a 
child.  This  is  corroborated  by  his  church  record.  See  the  state- 
ment above  for  the  year  1740. 

But,  although  Dorsius  had  oiTered  to  assist  Schlatter  in  every 
way  possible,  he  was  not  in  full  sympathy  with  his  mission  and 
plan.  This  is  evident  from  a  letter  which  Dorsius  addressed  to 
him  January  19,  1747,-^  in  answer  to  a  letter  of  Schlatter.  In 
this  letter  he  informed  Schlatter,  that  neither  he  (Dorsius)  nc" 
his  consistory  considered  themselves  under  obligation  to  submit 
to  an  examination  by  Schlatter,  that  Schlatter's  desire  was  in 
conflict  with  his  instructions  from  Holland,  which  restricted  him 
to  the  German  churches.  Moreover,  he  served  notice  on  Schlatter 
that  his  congregation  did  not  consider  itself  as  being  under  the 
supervision  of  any  Dutch  Classis,  nor  had  any  intention  of  plac- 

21  Schlatter's  Life  and  Travels,  p.   129. 

22  See  the  diary  as  published  by  the  writer  in  Journal  of  Presbyterian 
Historical   Society.   Vol.    Ill,   p.    118. 

23  Schlatter  s  Life   and    Travels,  p.    136. 

24  See  Journal  of  Presbyterian  Historical  Society,  Vol.    Ill,   p.    116. 

25  Now  at  The  Hague,   74,   I,   51    (12). 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE  REV.    PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS  65 

ing  itself  under  them,  so  that,  according  to  their  opinion,  Schlat- 
ter was  stretching  his  authority  in  his  effort  to  include  them. 
He  warned  Schlatter  by  his  own  experience  several  years  be- 
fore, when  he  had  made  a  similar  effort,  to  his  own  grief  and 
loss.  He  also  notified  Schlatter  that  a  week  after  his  visit  his 
consistory  had  met,  which,  when  Schlatter's  demand  had  been 
submitted  to  them,  had  refused  absolutely  to  allow  any  examina- 
tion to  be  made,  inasmuch  as  they  had  asked  the  Church  of  Hol- 
land for  a  minister  merely,  but  not  for  an  examiner.  They  de- 
clared, however,  that  Do.  Dorsius  would  be  ready  to  give  Schlat- 
ter any  information  he  'might  wish  to  have  and  in  a  postscript 
added  that  a  friendly  visit  by  Schlatter  would  be  welcome. 

But  the  career  of  Dorsius  in  Pennsylvania  came  to  an  unex- 
pected end  in  the  year  1748.  On  May  2,  1748,  three  members  of 
the  consistory  at  Xeshaminy,  Hendrik  Croesen,  Jacob  Bennet 
and  Jacob  Van  der  Grift,  addressed  a  letter  to  Schlatter,--'  in 
which  they  informed  him  that  they  had  paid  him  a  visit  at  his 
house,  but  had  not  found  him  at  home.  They  asked  him  to  come 
to  Bucks  county  on  June  2nd  or  if  not  to  notify  them.  As  Schlat- 
ter started  on  his  journey  to  Virginia  May  3,  1748,  the  letter  did 
not  reach  him  till  his  return.  May  21st.  On  June  23rd,  he  writes 
in  his  journal:  "I  went  to  Northampton  [Bucks  county],  upon 
the  earnest  solicitations  of  the  congregation,  and  preached  for 
the  Dutch  congregation  of  Mr.  Dorsius,  for  the  first  time,  as 
well  as  I  could  in  their  language.  My  efforts  to  abate  the  strife 
existing  between  minister  and  congregation  were  fruitless ;  and, 
as  Mr.  Dorsius  continues  in  his  purpose  to  go  over  to  Holland, 
I  promised  to  visit  them  once  a  month  to  preach  for  them  in  the 
week."-^ 

The  rest  of  the  sad  story  is  told  in  two  notices  which  appeared 
in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette.  On  June  9,  1748,  Dorsius  notified 
the  public  that  his  wife  had  eloped  from  him  and  hence  he  warned 
people  "not  to  trust  her  on  his  account,"  as  he  would  not  pay  her 
debts.  This  notice  was  answered,  on  June  16,  1748,  by  Derrick 
Hogeland,  his  father-in-law,  by  the  following  statement : 

"Whereas  Peter  Henry  Dorsius  did  some  weeks  since  advertise  his 
wife  Jane  as  eloped  from  him,  etc.  This  is  to  certify  whom  it  may  con- 
cern, that  after  a  long  series  of  ill-usage,   patiently   borne   by   the   said 

26  Also  at  The  Hague.   74,   I,   51    (13). 

27  Schlatter's  Life  and  Travels,  p.   180. 


66  LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.   PETER   HENRY   DORSIUS 

Jane  and  a  course  of  intemperance  and  extravagance,  for  which  he  has 
been  suspended  from  the  exercise  of  his  ministerial  office  in  the  Dutch 
congregation  in  Southampton;  when  he  had  squandered  most  of  his 
substance,  sold  and  spent  a  great  part  of  his  household  goods  and  was 
about  to  sell  the  remainder,  though  he  had  before  in  his  sober  hours 
by  direction  of  a  magistrate  made  them  over  for  the  use  of  his  family, 
when  he  had  for  several  days  abandoned  his  dwelling  and  left  his  wife 
and  three  children  nothing  to  subsist  on,  her  father  found  himself  at 
length  under  a  necessity  to  take  her  and  them  into  his  care  and  protec- 
tion and  accordingly  fetched  them  home  to  his  own  house,  which  he 
would  not  otherwise  have  done,  having  beside  a  large  family  of  his 
own  to  provide  for. 

DERRICK   HOGELAND." 

After  such  an  exposure,  Dorsius  could  not  hope  to  maintain 
himself  in  Pennsylvania.  Hence  he  left  Philadelphia  on  August 
4,  1748,  on  a  ship  which  was  bound  for  Dublin,  Ireland.  Forced 
by  contrary  wind  to  enter  the  harbor  of  Belfast,  Dorsius  found 
there  another  sloop  to  take  him  to  Rotterdam,  where  he  arrived 
on  October  1,  1748,  old  style.  In  Holland  he  assisted  at  first 
several  sick  ministers  at  Rotterdam  and  Maas  Sluys.  Later  he 
became  assistant  to  the  minister  of  the  Count  of  Isselstein.  From 
Isselstein  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Deputies  in  June  1749,  in 
which  he  related  at  length  his  experiences  in  Pennsylvania.  He 
gave  as  his  reason  for  his  return  to  Holland  the  fact  that  his 
salary  had  decreased  so  much  that  he  was  unable  to  live  on  it. 
On  May  24,  1749,  he  appeared  before  the  Deputies  at  The  Hague. 
He  handed  to  them  a  written  report,  and  offered  to  make  an  oral 
statement  at  the  meeting  of  the  Synod  of  South  Holland,  held 
July  8-18,  1749,  at  The  Hague,  which  he  did.  But  the  Synod  re- 
ferred his  case  to  the  Deputies  for  consideration. 

On  January  20-23,  1750,  Dorsius  appeared  again  before  the 
Deputies  and  asked  for  a  dismission  to  go  to  d'Elmina,  a  sea  port 
of  the  Gold  Coast,  West  Africa.  But,  after  examining  their 
minutes,  the  Deputies  concluded  that,  as  they  had  not  called  him 
to  Bucks  county,  they  could  not  dismiss  him,  but  that  he  would 
have  to  address  himself  to  his  former  congregation  for  a  dismissal. 

On  May  27-29,  1750,  the  Deputies  received  a  letter  from  Mrs. 
Dorsius,^®  in  which  she  stated  that  she  had  been  married  to 
Dorsius  December  16,  1740.  She  complained  bitterly  about  his 
conduct  during  their  married  life,  and  that  after  his  suspension 

28  Recorded   in   the   minutes  of  the   Deputies. 


LIFE  AND  WORK   OF  THE   REV.    PETER   HENRY  DORSIUS  67 

by  the  consistory,  he  had  abandoned  her  and  their  three  children. 
At  the  Synod  of  South  Holland,  held  at  Woerden  on  July  1750. 
the  case  of  Dorsius  and  his  wife  was  once  more  referred  to  the 
Deputies  for  settlement. 

It  also  came  before  the  Classis  of  Amsterdam.  On  January 
13,  1750,  the  directors  of  the  West  India  Company  notified  the 
Classis  that  they  had  appointed  Dorsius  as  minister  to  d'Elmina, 
and  asked  the  Classis  to  confirm  the  call.  The  latter  replied  that 
they  had  no  objection  to  the  appointment,  provided  Dorsius  would 
prove  his  legal  dismission  from  Pennsylvania  and  submit  a  testi- 
monial of  his  character.-''  To  the  repeated  requests  of  the  Classis, 
Dorsius  failed  to  make  a  satisfactory  reply.  Finally,  on  October 
5,  1750,  the  Classis  was  informed  by  the  Synodical  Deputies  re- 
garding the  facts  in  the  case  and  that  the  whereabouts  of  Dorsius 
was  unknown.  These  facts  were  ordered  to  communicated  to  the 
West  India  Company. ^"^  This  ended  the  career  of  Dorsius  in  the 
Dutch  Church.    What  became  of  him  afterwards  is  unknown. 

His  wife  was  for  many  years  supported  by  the  Coetus  of 
Pennsylvania.  On  April  26,  1753,  the  Coetus  voted  £8  for  her 
support,  including  £6  given  by  the  Synod  of  North  Holland. ^^ 
From  that  date  she  received  a  yearly  subsidy  varying  in  amounts 
from  £4  to  £10.  In  1757  she  is  called  for  the  first  time  "Widow 
Dorsius"  in  the  minutes,^-  hence  her  husband  must  have  died 
sometime  between  June  1756  and  August  1757.  Donations  to 
her  are  on  record  from  1753-1776. 

The  ministry  of  Dorsius  from  1737-1748  closed  the  second 
chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  congregation  of 
Bucks  county. 

29  See  Ecclesiastical  Records  of  Neiv   York,  Vol.   IV,  p.   3105. 

30  1.  «c.  p.  3188. 

31  See  Minutes  of  Coetus.  p.   87. 

32  1.  c.  p.   160. 


Gristmills  of  an  Ancient  Type  Known  as  Norse  Mills. 

BY    HORACE    M.    MANN,    DOYLESTOWN,    PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  19,  1918.) 

THE  result  of  my  trip  to  the  Big  Smoky  region  of  western 
North  Carohna  during  the  month  of  October,  1917,  was  the 
finding,  amongst  many  other  nearly  equally  interesting  and 
important  specimens,  of  an  old  type  of  water  power  gristmill 
described  by  Mitchell  in  his  Past  in  the  Present,  published  by 
David  Douglass,  Edinburgh,  1880,  as  a  "Norse  Mill." 

Mitchell  describes  this  remarkable  gristmill  known  as  the 
Norse  Mill  still  to  be  found  in  1880  in  the  Shetland  and  Orkney 
Islands,  and  probably  introduced  there  from  Norway.  At  the 
time  I  had  the  honor  to  become  associated  with  this  interesting 
work  Dr.  Mercer  had  supposed  that  mills  of  this  type  had  once 
been  built  in  the  United  States  and  still  survived  in  the  mountain 
region  of  western  North  Carolina.  After  considerable  corre- 
spondence the  evidence  of  the  existence  of  such  mills  seemed 
sufficient  to  justify  a  trip  to  that  part  of  the  country. 

On  the  8th  day  of  October  I  started  for  White  Rock,  Madison 
county.  North  Carolina,  and  the  result  is  the  complete  Norse  Mill 
now  standing  in  the  northwest  corridor  of  the  fourth  floor  of  our 
museum.  The  details  of  the  trip  are  of  no  moment.  Sufficient 
to  say  that  after  making  many  inquiries  at  Asheville,  Marshall, 
and  other  places  en  route  which  did  not  give  me  any  further  in- 
formation, I  started  from  White  Rock  on  Saturday,  October  13th, 
to  examine  the  mills  which  our  correspondent.  Dr.  George  H. 
Packard,  of  that  place,  had  found  for  us.  The  trip  was  entirely 
on  horseback  over  narrow  mountain  trails  with  few  widely  scat- 
tered cabins  along  the  way. 

The  first  mill  of  this  kind  was  found  on  the  Big  Laurel  Creek, 
Madison  county,  N.  C.  It  belonged  to  a  man  named  Lige  Wilds, 
about  one  mile  from  Jasper  Shelton's  store.  The  man  himself 
was  absent  but  the  door  stood  open  and  you  may  well  imagine 
my  satisfaction  with  the  first  sight  of  a  mill  that  in  all  its  essen- 
tials was  a  true  type  of  the  Norse  Mill.  Proceeding  to  the  store 
I  found  Mr.  Wilds,  but  he  absolutely  refused  to  consider  an  oflfer 


i\orse  Mill  recently  In  use  in  Madison  County,  North  Carolina,  now 
in  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  illustrating-  paper  on  the  Xorse 
Mill  by  Mr.  Horace  M.   Mann. 


GRISTMILLS    OF    AN    ANCIENT    TYPE  69 

for  the  mill  saying,  "It  was  built  by  'Pappy'  and  he  didn't  reckon 
he  cared  to  part  with  it."  A  small  man  buying  some  nails  then 
spoke  up  and  said  he  owned  a  similar  mill  and  would  be  willing 
to  sell  it.  As  he  lived  some  distance  back  along  the  trail  that  we 
had  just  come  over  I  took  his  name,  Amos  Capts,  and  promised 
him  a  call  on  my  way  back  and  proceeded  further  to  see  other 
mills  that  Dr.  Packard  had  found. 

Since  I  had  found  the  mill  I  had  made  the  trip  for,  the  only 
consideration  now  was  which  mill  I  could  secure  the  cheapest 
and  transport  to  the  railroad.  This  type  of  mill  was  called  by 
the  mountain  men  of  the  "Laurel  Section,"  of  Madison  county, 
a  "Corn  Mill,"  "Tub  Wheel,"  (See  notes  on  Tub  Wheels  by  Dr. 
H.  C.  Mercer  at  end  of  the  sketch)  or  a  "Willis  Wheel."  The  first 
name  speaks  for  itself,  as  in  those  mountains  corn  is  by  far  the 
principal  crop,  though  as  some  little  wheat  is  raised  it  naturally 
would  be  ground  on  the  same  mills ;  the  second  name  is  due  to 
the  appearance  of  the  water  wheel  which  does  resemble  a  wide 
shallow  tub ;  the  origin  of  the  last  name  I  could  not  find  out,  they 
simply  said  it  was  always  called  that.  I  also  heard  the  mill  re- 
ferred to  as  a  "Blockade  Mill,"  one  used  for  grinding  corn  for 
the  making  of  blockade  whiskey.  Of  course  I  never  found  them 
using  the  name,  "Norse  Mill," 

The  next  mill  Dr.  Packard  had  discovered  was  also  on  the  Big 
Laurel  which  at  this  point  had  diminished  to  a  small  rapid  moun- 
tain stream  hardly  meriting  its  name  of  Big  Laurel.  The  mill 
belonged  to  a  man  named  J.  J.  Rice.  It,  too,  was  a  true  type  of 
Norse  Mill  and  this  man  was  willing  to  bargain  concerning  it 
but  I  thought  the  price.  $75  for  the  mill  and  $80  for  the  stones, 
somewhat  excessive,  so  passed  on  to  inspect  the  last  mill  found 
by  Dr.  Packard.  This  was  situated  a  considerable  distance  from 
the  first  two  on  a  branch  of  the  Big  Laurel,  called  the  Punching- 
fork.  Here  I  found  a  genial  old  man  of  French  descent,  Gustave 
Porchia,  (pronounced  Porchey),  whose  father  came  from 
France  about  1850  as  a  traveling  player  of  the  barrel  organ.  His 
mill  had  originally  been  a  Norse  Mill  but  he  had,  on  account  of 
diminishing  water  power,  cut  ofif  the  shaft  of  the  water-wheel 
below  the  spindle,  attached  a  belt  wheel  to  the  shaft,  moved  the 
mill  stones  some  distance  away  and  attached  another  belt  wheel 
to  the  lower  end  of  the  spindle  in  its  new  position,  giving  him  a 


70  GRISTMILLS    OF    AN    ANCIENT    TYPE 

mill  with  belt  counter  drive,  and  greater  speed.     His  price  of 
$500  was  so  excessive  that  I  left  without  further  bargaining. 

Returning  over  the  trail  I  was  stopped  by  the  Mr.  Rice,  men- 
tioned before  as  owner  of  the  second  mill  I  had  seen,  who  now 
seemed  more  anxious  to  sell  but  I  refused  to  close  a  bargain  until 
I  had  seen  the  Amos  Capts  mill  which  I  had  heard  of  at  the 
Shelton  store.  I  arrived  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Capts  about  dark 
and  he  very  cordially  insisted  that  I  should  spend  the  night  with 
him  if  I  could  "put  up  with  his  fare,  for  he  lived  plain."  It  was 
then  too  dark  to  go  to  see  his  mill  and  though  I  had  some  doubts 
in  regard  to  the  fare,  still  I  could  do  no  better  by  going  on  and 
he  made  up  by  his  cordial  welcome  what  he  lacked  in  style.  His 
one-story  house,  built  entirely  of  logs,  roughtly  hewn  at  the  points 
of  intersection  and  chinked  with  clay,  was  rather  superior  to  the 
usual  log  cabin  of  the  mountaineer.  This  cabin  had  originally, 
no  doubt,  been  composed  of  one  room  only  about  twenty-five 
feet  long  by  fifteen  feet  wide  with  the  chimney  built  at  the  north 
end.  But  the  needs  of  an  increasing  family  had  made  necessary 
a  larger  dwelling  and  two  more  rooms  had  been  added,  not  at  the 
gable  end  but  at  the  side,  after  which  the  three  buildings  were 
re-roofed  at  right  angles  to  the  original  roof,  so  that  all  rooms 
were  now  under  the  one  roof,  making  a  dwelling  about  forty-five 
feet  long  by  twenty-five  feet  wide.  The  first  addition  communi- 
cated with  the  old  cabin  but  the  last  addition  had  no  direct  access 
to  the  other  two  rooms.  A  door  leading  to  a  porch  passing  along 
the  side  of  the  first  two  rooms  was  the  only  entrance.  On  enter- 
ing, the  first  room  of  the  old  cabin  was  found  to  be  the  living 
room  of  the  family.  Here  the  most  striking  feature  was  the 
open  fire  place.  The  chimney  for  which  was  built  on  the  out- 
side of  the  house  at  the  middle  of  the  original  gable  end  of  the 
old  cabin  and  was  the  only  chimney  for  the  whole  dwelling.  It 
wa's  built  of  undressed  sand  stone  laid  in  clay  mortar  much  the 
same  as  was  used  in  chinking  the  logs  of  the  house.  The  fire 
place  was  about  five  feet  long,  by  four  feet  high  and  about 
eighteen  inches  deep.  It  was  built  of  the  same  stone  as  the 
chimney,  pointed  but  not  plastered.  The  hearth  which  extended 
for  some  distance  outside  the  fire  place  was  paved  with  large 
stones  and  the  jambs  of  the  fire  place  drew  together  to  support 
one  large  stone  about  three  feet  long  forming  its  top  in  lieu  of 


GRISTMILLS    OF    AN    ANCIENT    TYPE  71 

the  heavy  beam  or  lintel  of  Bucks  county  fire  places.  The  inner 
walls  of  the  room  were  roughly  plastered  with  clay  laid  di- 
rectly on  the  logs,  without  any  attempt  to  use  laths.  On  some 
parts  of  the  walls  newspapers  were  pasted,  both  for  decoration 
and  to  keep  out  the  cold.  No  cooking  apparatus  appeared  in  the 
fire  place  which  was  equipped  with  andirons  of  wrought  iron. 
But  I'saw  no  tongs  and  no  crane,  trammel  or  lug  pole.  I  saw  no 
kettle  oven  in  this  cabin,  but  found  them  elsewhere  in  use  for 
baking  corn  bread  in  open  fire  places.  The  cooking  in  this  room 
was  done  in  a  cast  iron  cooking  range  equipped  for  burning  wood 
in  the  style  of  those  used  in  the  present  farmhouses  in  Bucks 
county.  There  was  no  second  story  to  the  building  and  the  fami- 
ly slept  in  two  beds  which  I  saw  in  the  kitchen  and  in  the  other 
two  rooms.  I  saw  no  old  blacksmith  work  upon  the  doors  such 
as  latches,  hinges,  etc.  There  were  no  shutters  or  curtains  in  the 
windows.  Common  modern  kerosene  lamps  with  broken  chim- 
neys furnished  what  light  there  was.  I  noticed  a  flax  spinning 
wheel  and  reel  in  one  corner  of  the  third  room  which  I  learned 
had  not  been  used  by  the  present  generation.  The  bedding  con- 
sisted of  horse  blankets  without  sheets.. 

The  next  morning  I  went  with  Mr.  Capts  to  see  his  mill.  It 
was  in  fine  condition,  answered  the  requirements  in  every  respect 
and  his  price,  $40  delivered  at  the  nearest  railroad  station,  was 
less  than  half  any  one  else  had  asked  me  for  the  mill  alone.  The 
transportation  in  this  mountain  country  is  always  a  difificult  and 
costly  operation  and  his  offer  including  the  delivery  decided  me 
at  once  to  accept  his  price.  This  mill  was  found  in  a  small  one- 
story  building,  hardly  more  than  a  "shack."  about  twenty  by 
twenty  feet  wide  and  twenty  feet  at  the  peak  of  the  room.  It 
was  made  of  rough  machine  sawed  boards  roofed  with  hand 
riven  pine  shingles  and  with  hand-hewn  rafters.  It  was  situated 
on  the  sloping  bank  of  a  swift  mountain  stream  barely  six  feet 
wide  and  about  six  to  eight  inches  deep  called  Forster's  Creek,  a 
branch  of  the  Big  Laurel.  The  road  running  parallel  with  the 
creek,  and  before  the  door  of  the  mill,  appeared  to  be  only  a  wide 
trail,  though  at  all  times  of  the  year  wagons  managed  to  get 
along  over  it.  On  entering  the  mill  from  this  road,  I  found  it  was 
so  constructed  that  the  inner  portion  of  the  shed  consisted  of  a 
single  room  on  two  levels,  of  about  equal  size.     The  upper  for 


72  GRISTMILLS    OF    AN    ANCIENT    TYPE 

the  mill  stones  and  hopper  and  the  other,  about  four  feet  lower, 
for  the  unloading  and  storage  of  grain.  The  portion  of  structure 
immediately  under  the  mill  stones,  through  which  the  stream 
ran,  was  open  on  three  sides  and  the  vertical  space  between  the 
upper  and  lower  floor  was  boarded,  forming  the  inner  side  of 
the  water  wheel  compartment.  This  partition  was  not  furnished 
with  a  door.  Three  wooden  steps  led  from  the  lower  or  store- 
house level  to  the  upper  or  mill  stone  floor,  inside  the  building. 
Going  out  of  the  building  and  around  to  the  creek  bed  on  the  op- 
posite side  from  the  mill  entrance,  I  found  the  horizontal  water 
wheel  directly  under  the  mill  stone.  At  this  point  I  was  able  to 
see  the  great  simplicity  and  primitive  construction  of  the  appar- 
atus which  differed  from  that  of  any  grist  mill  I  had  ever  seen  in 
the  fact  that  the  mill  stones  were  set  upon  the  vertical  shaft  of 
the  water  wheel  itself  and  turned  with  it.  There  were  no  cog 
wheels,  counter  wheels,  belts,  or  devices  for  the  transmission  of 
power.  One  shaft  alone  revolved  with  the  water  wheel  at  one 
end,  the  bottom,  and  the  upper  mill  stone  at  the  other  end,  the 
top.  The  water  wheel  was  set  on  a  bridge  tree  about  six  feet  long 
by  six  inches  thick  crossing  the  bed  of  the  stream  at  right  angles 
furnished  with  a  rough  iron  step-box  mortised  about  the  center 
to  make  a  bearing  for  the  toe  of  the  water  wheel  shaft.  One  end 
of  this  bridge  tree  was  mortised  and  pegged  into  the  husk  or 
frame  work  surrounding  the  mill  stones,  and  the  other  end  laid 
free  on  the  groimd  with  a  lighter  rod  fastened  to  it.  The  water 
wheel  itself  was  about  four  feet  in  diameter  with  the  base  of  the 
vertical  shaft  mortised  into  its  solid  wooden  center,  which  center 
extended  to  about  eight  inches  from  the  rim  of  the  wheel.  Be- 
tween the  rim  and  the  solid  center  were  diagonally  inserted  hand 
forged  iron  plates  in  somewhat  the  shape  of  an  open  letter  S. 
Through  the  spiral  openings  facing  these  plates  the  water  rushed 
downward  giving  the  movement  to  the  wheel.  The  water  supply 
to  drive  the  wheel  was  secured  from  the  creek  by  means  of  the 
forebay,  a  rough  trough  open  on  top  about  two  feet  in  diameter, 
running  on  the  leval  from  the  bed  of  the  stream  and  occupying 
about  three-quarters  of  the  breadth  of  the  latter  without  any  dam 
or  attempt  to  direct  water  into  it.  This  trough  ran  for  about 
fifteen  feet  in  the  direction  of  the  water  wheel  to  within  about 
five  feet  of  the  mill.    As  the  fall  of  the  stream  was  considerable 


GRISTMILLS    OF    AN    ANCIENT    TYPE  73 

this  forebay  was  supported  on  a  trestle,  the  props  of  which  were 
set  directly  in  the  bed  of  the  stream,  the  latter  flowing  directly 
under  the  building  and  also  under  the  water  wheel  and  mill 
stones.  A,t  the  end  of  the  forebay  toward  the  mill  the  trough 
narrowed  into  a  penstock  or  flume  about  one  foot  square  com- 
pletely covered  and  making  a  decline  of  about  forty-five  degrees. 
As  the  stream  at  this  point  flowed  downward  at  a  sharp  incline, 
the  end  of  the  flume  above  mentioned,  departing  from  the  stream 
at  a  level,  by  the  time  it  reached  the  mill  was  nearly  six  feet 
above  the  stream  level  at  the  point  of  the  downturning  of  the  pen- 
stock. The  water  was  so  directed  that  it  struck  the  water  wheel 
at  the  nearest  outer  portion  of  its  diameter  facing  up  stream.  The 
mill  I  secured  had  been  partially  dismantled  so  that  I  was  unable 
to  bring  any  portion  of  this  forebay  and  penstock  away  but  the 
above  explanation  was  noted  in  the  mill  of  Lige  Wilds  on  the  Big 
Laurel,  a  mill  similar  in  all  respects  to  the  one  I  secured.  On  the 
upper  portion  of  the  mill  floor  reached  by  three  wooden  steps,  I 
found  the  mill  stones  resting  on  a  frame  work  or  husk  and  set 
through  the  floor  planks,  the  hoop  or  mill  stone  box,  the  curb, 
the  hopper  and  the  bench  or  framework  supporting  it,  the  shoe, 
and  a  dampsel  of  wood  as  shown  in  the  museum.  These  parts 
in  general  resembling  those  in  use  in  old  gristmills  of  Bucks 
county,  whereas  the  dampsel  in  the  Shetland  mill,  described  by 
Mitchell,  was  differently  constructed  and  his  mill  stones  lacked  a 
hoop.  About  two  feet  to  the  left  of  the  mill  stones  the  wrought 
iron  lighter  rod  extended  up  through  the  floor  and  was  sur- 
mount by  a  hand  made  wrought  iron  hand  wheel  or  screw  for 
raising  the  mill  stones.  This  wheel  or  screw  was  furnished  with 
two  arms  or  handles  for  turning,  about  six  to  eight  inches  in  di- 
ameter. The  lighter  rod,  continuing  down  through  the  floor  for 
about  four  feet,  was  fastened  to  a  wooden  arm  or  extension, 
which  in  turn  was  mortised  and  pegged  into  the  end  of  the  bridge 
tree  to  raise  and  lower  the  water  wheel,  and  upper  mill  stone  re- 
volving on  the  top  of  its  vertical  shaft,  thereby  grinding  coarse  or 
fine.  A  curious  point  characteristic  of  the  Norse  Mill  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  common  gristmill  might  be  noted  here  in  the 
fact  that  when  the  bridge-tree  is  raised  by  means  of  this  lighter 
rod  not  only  the  upper  mill  stone  but  the  water  wheel  itself  goes 
up  with  it.     The  mill  stones  are  composed  of  a  hard  bluish  rock 


74  GRISTMILLS    OF    AN    ANCIENT    TYPE 

quarried  about  sixty  years  ago,  when  the  mill  was  first  built, 
from  the  side  of  a  neighboring  hill,  not  far  from  the  location  of 
the  mill,  according  to  information  of  Mr.  Capts.  At  top  of  the 
husk  or  framework  surrounding  the  water  wheel  and  shaft  and 
resting  on  the  upper  floor  of  the  mill,  a  circular  frame  work  called 
the  "curb"  is  fitted,  so  that  the  top  of  this  curb  is  just  level  with 
the  stones  at  the  point  of  their  contact.  A  trough  is  notched  into 
this  curb  leading  downward  to  a  meal  box  set  on  the  lower  por- 
tion of  the  mill  floor.  The  "eye"  of  the  lower  mill  stone  through 
which  the  spindle  passes,  was  filled  with  a  block  of  soft  wood, 
hewn  to  fit  and  then  driven  into  the  "eye"  until  tight.  A  hole 
was  bored  in  the  wooden  block  for  the  spindle  to  pass  through 
forming  a  bearing  in  the  nature  of  a  bush  as  found  in  the  modem 
gristmill  of  Bucks  county.  This  wooden  bearing  prevented  the 
leakage  of  meal  around  the  spindle. 

On  Monday,  October  15,  1917,  Mr.  Capts'  son,  Hezekiah,  as- 
sisted me  to  take  down  and  load  the  mill  and  started  out  with 
six  horses  to  make  the  sixteen  mile  trip  over  the  mountain  to 
Marshall,  the  nearest  railroad  station.  At  the  top  of  Walnut 
Mountain  four  of  the  horses  were  sent  back  by  a  small  boy,  also 
a  son  of  Capts,  as  from  there  on  the  road  would  be  mostly  down 
grade.  It  took  all  day  to  make  the  trip.  The  next  day  I  crated 
the  mill  on  the  station  platform  with  lumber  bought  from  Shel- 
ton's  garage  in  Marshall  and  shipped  the  mill  to  Doylestown  by 
Southern  Express,  October  16.  1917. 

I  searched  in  a  radius  of  about  fifteen  miles  around  White 
Rock,  Madison  county.  North  Carolina,  in  the  region  called 
"The  Big  Laurel  Section,"  and  found  three  perfect  and  one 
altered  Norse  Mills.  None  of  which  were  probably  more  than 
sixty  years  old. 

The  mill  purchased  by  me  was  originally  built,  according  to 
the  information  of  its  present  owner,  as  a  so-called  "Blockade 
Mill,"  in  other  words  one  to  grind  corn  for  distilling  illicit  or 
"moonshine"  whiskey. 

The  Norse  Mill  with  its  very  small  water-wheel  revolving 
rapidly  without  counter  gear  requires  a  swift  and  plentiful  down- 
rush  of  water  and  is  particularly  adapted  to  streams  running 
down  steep  hill  sides  and  to  a  country  where  under  these  cir- 
cumstances there   is  good   rainfall.      I   heard   of   no   mill   dams 


NOTES   ON    THE    NORSE    MILL  75 

properly  so  called  in  connection  with  any  Norse  Mill  that  came 
within  my  observation.  Finally  I  may  say  that  all  the  Norse 
Mills  I  observed  were  constructed  in  the  same  manner,  all  were 
about  the  same  size,  and  all  were  sheltered  by  sheds  of  similar 
dimensions  and  appearance. 


Notes  on  the  Norse  Mill. 

BY  DR.  HENRY  C.  MERCER. 
(Doylestown   Meeting-,   Jan.    19,    1918.) 

The  very  comprehensive  KiiigJit's  America)!  Mechanical  Dic- 
tonary  (New  York,  Hurd  &  Houton,  1876),  does  not  notice  the 
very  ancient  form  of  grist  mill  known  as  the  Norse  Mill,  an  ex- 


Norse  Mill  as  existing  in  the  Shetland   Islands  in  1880  from  The 
Past  in  the  Present,  Mitchell  Edinburgh,   1880,  page  41. 


76  NOTES   ON    THE    NORSE    MILL 

ample  of  which  we  have  just  placed  in  our  museum ;  but  Mitchell 
in  his  Past  in  the  Present  (Edinburgh,  Douglas,  1880)  page  41, 
describes  and  illustrates  it  as  existing  in  the  Shetland  Islands  in 
1880.  I  made  a  drawing  of  his  illustration  and  showed  it  here 
at  our  last  winter  meeting  as  a  supplement  to  the  description  of 
our  hand  corn  mills  or  querns,  then  the  subject  of  discussion/ 
When  I  did  so  I  was  so  satisfied  that  the  type  of  water  gristmill 
presented  by  our  other  old  Bucks  county  mill  on  exhibition,  rep- 
resented the  earliest  American  type,  that  I  was  convinced  that  no 
such  primitive  apparatus  as  that  which  we  have  just  obtained, 
had  ever  been  used  in  the  United  States.     But  I  was  mistaken. 

A  few  days  later,  on  discussing  the  subject  of  our  meeting  with 
my  father,  he  referred  me  to  a  remarkable  passage  in  A  Thousand 
Mile  Walk  to  the  Gulf  by  John  Muir,  Boston  (Houghton  Mififlin 
&  Co.,  1916)  page  35,  in  which  Muir  the  botanist  says,  that  in 
1867  he  found  about  twenty  corn  gristmills  in  southeastern  Ten- 
nessee, one  of  which  on  the  Hiowassee  river,  about  two  days  walk 
from  Madisonville,  had  been  built  by  John  Vohn  to  grind  from 
■ten  to  fifteen  bushels  of  corn  a  day. 

Muir  describes  this  mill  as  equipped  with  "a  small  stone  that  a 
man  might  carry  under  his  arm.  which  is  fastened  to  the  vertical 
shaft  of  a  home-made,  boyish-looking,  back-action  waterwheel 
which,  with  a  hopper  and  a  box  to  receive  the  meal  is  the  whole 
affair.  The  walls  of  the  mill  are  of  undressed  poles  cut  from 
seedling  trees  and  there  is  no  floor,  as  lumber  is  dear.  No  dam 
is  built  and  the  water  is  conveyed  along  the  hillside  until  suf- 
ficient fall  is  obtained." 

On  reading  this  description  I  was  struck  with  the  words  "verti- 
cal shaft"  and  "back-action"  and  felt  convinced  that  what  Muir 
had  found  in  1867,  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  Norse  Mill 
described  by  Mitchell  and  further  that  if.  in  1867,  twenty  of  these 
mills  had  been  in  use.  some  might  still  exist  in  1917  or  fifty 
years  later. 

Hardly  a  week  had  elapsed  when  a  visitor  to  the  museum,  Mr. 
Fr£^ncis  Biddle,  just  returned  from  a  riding  trip  in  western  North 
Carolina  informed  me,  after  looking  at  our  old  Bucks  county 
mill,  that  he  had  seen  very  primitive  water  gristmills  in  the  Caro- 
lina Mountains,  apparently   lacking  what    we    know    as    water 

1   Published  in  Vol.  IV,  p.   733  et  seq. 


NOTES   ON    THE    NORSE    MILL  17 

wheels.  Though  unable  to  clearly  describe  them  as  Norse  Mills 
he  referred  me  to  Dr.  George  B.  Packard,  of  White  Rock,  North 
Carolina,  and  a  correspondence  followed  which  resulted  in  the 
latter  identifying  several  mills  of  the  Norse  type  near  that  place. 
This  was  followed  very  shortly  by  a  journey  of  Dr.  William 
Edgar  Geil  to  North  Carolina,  who  at  my  request  inquired  for 
and  heard  of  another  mill  of  this  kind  in  Buncombe  county,  and 
finally,  by  a  systematic  exploration  of  the  region  by  Mr.  Horace 
M.  Mann  in  October  1917  who  found  six,  and  bought  and  sent 
home  one  of  these  mills  which  now  stands  in  our  museum  as  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  objects  in  the  whole  collection,  for  two 
reasons : 

First — Because  the  mill  shows  a  step  in  the  application  of 
water  power  to  the  grinding  of  meal,  more  primitive  than  any- 
thing we  have  thus  far  found,  and  second,  because  the  apparatus 
belongs  to  the  class  of  objects  which,  as  concerned  with  one 
of  the  four  great  overmastering  requirements  of  life,  namely  the 
preparation  of  bread  for  food,  is  of  greater  significance  than 
clocks,  signboards,  furniture,  deeds,  county  seals,  toll-gates  and 
a  thousand  other  of  our  possessions  which,  from  a  scientific 
point  of  view  might  be  said  to  be  of  second,  third  or  fourth  class 
importance. 

When  we  compare  this  mill  with  the  Norse  original  described 
by  Mitchell,  several  differences  appear,  first  the  bridge-tree  in 
the  Shetland  mill  was  worked  by  a  wooden  wedge,  here  by  an 
iron  screw.  Second  the  Shetland  damsel  is  a  stone  tied  to  a 
string,  which  dragging  upon  the  revolving  surface  of  the  upper 
mill  stone  shakes  the  "shoe"  or  feeder,  while  in  this  case  the 
damsel  is  a  vertical  wooden  staff  projecting  from  the  top  of  the 
spindle  so  as  to  agitate  the  shoe  with  its  corrugations  as  it  re- 
volves. Third,  the  Shetland  hopper  is  swung  from  the  roof  by 
four  ropes,  here  it  rests  on  the  usual  hopper  "bench"  or  stand. 
Fourth,  our  mill-stones  are  boxed  in  with  the  usual  "hoop"  and 
"guard."  The  Shetland  stones  run  free.  Fifth,  the  wooden 
paddles  of  the  Shetland  water  wheel  are  set,  not  spirally  or 
obliquely,  but  vertically  against  the  shaft  and  are  not  enclosed  in 
the  circumference  of  the  wheel.  Our  paddles  are  made  of 
wrought  iron  enclosed  within  the  wheels'  circumference  and  set 
with  a  spiral  twist  against  an  extension  of  the  shaft,  a  variation 


78  NOTES   ON   THE   NORSE    MILL 

from  the  simple  Norse  form,  which  is  briefly  referred  to  by 
Knight  under  the  article  "Horizontal  Water  Wheel,"  and  which 
again  appears  in  an  illustration  found  for  me  by  Dr.  B.  F. 
Fackenthal,  Jr.,  and  also  published  in  Knight,  from  Harpers 
Magazine  for  May  1856,  page  723,  as  illustrating  a  horizontal 
water-wheel  turning  a  Chilean  Mill  to  grind  silver  ore  at  the 
Mina  Grande  mine  near  Tegucigalpa,  Honduras,  about  1855. 

But  these  differences  are  not  fundamental,  and  the  unmistakable 
point  of  similarity  is  the  fact  that  the  mill-stones  in  the  Shet- 
land and  American  instances  are  set  on  the  vertical  shaft  of  the 
water-wheel  itself  and  turn  directly  with  it.  It  is  a  machine 
therefore  of  the  simplest  character  with  no  belting,  no  cog  wheels 
and  no  counter  gearing  to  get  out  of  order. 

Although  Mitchell  did  not  trace  the  Shetland  mill  to  Norway 
in  1880,  he  asserts  that  the  Scandinavians  brought  it  to  Scotland 
and  my  friends,  Henrik  W  von  Z.  Loss,  of  Philadelphia,  and  S. 
Munch  Kielland,  of  Buffalo,  both  natives  of  Norway,  inform  me 
that  this  type  of  gristmill  still  exists  there.  I  have  also  a  draw- 
ing of  one  of  these  mills  in  its  native  home,  from  a  photograph 
given  me  by  Mrs.  Hamilton  Fish,  Jr..  of  New  York,  and  taken 
by  her  about  1908  in  Norway,  which  shows  the  general  construc- 
tion of  the  building,  the  position  of  the  water-wheel,  bridge-tree 
and  penstock,  but  which  is  unfortunately  too  indistinct  for  exact 
comparisons. 

It  remains  to  be  learned  why  the  natives  of  western  North 
Carolina  call  this  mill  the  "Willis  W^heel."  We  can  suppose,  but 
without  proof  as  yet,  that  Scotch  emigrants,  in  the  eighteenth 
century  brought  it  with  them  from  Scotland,  but  as  to  the 
origin  and  distribution  of  the  apparatus  we  do  not  now 
know  whether  it  was  invented  in  Norway  or  brought  thither,  or 
whether  it  still  survives  in  the  mountains  of  Spain,  Italy,  Ger- 
many or  Eastern  Europe  or  even  whether  it  has  been  introduced 
and  still  exists  in  other  parts  of  the  United  States  where  an  un- 
dammed  mountain  stream  w^ould  turn  mill  stones. 

The  more  we  think  of  this  mill  as  included  in  the  field  of  re- 
search illustrated  by  our  collection  the  more  we  realize  the  great 
number  of  important  objects  illustrating  the  early  history  of 
man  which  have  escaped  the  notice  of  travellers  and  even  en- 
cyclopedias.    So  much  the  more  might  we  regret  the  superficial 


NOTES   ON    THE    NORSE    MILL  79 

nature  of  our  own  observations  in  past  travels,  when  our  atten- 
tion has  been  concentrated  upon  transient  or  picturesque  things. 
We  might  wonder,  not  so  much  that  Reese  and  Knight  did  not 
describe  this  mill  or  that  Miss  Margaret  W.  Morley  in  her  The 
Carolina  Mountains,  (Houghton-Mifflin  Co.,  New  York,  1913) 
should  make  no  mention  of  it,  as  that  John  Muir  should  notice 
it  at  all. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  all  the  ancient  water  gristmills 
of  Bucks  county  were  run  by  vertical  overshot  or  undershot 
water  wheels  until  about  1820,  after  which  time,  according  to 
Reese  Encyclopaedia  (Article  Water  Wheel)  experiments  were 
made  in  England  upon  Barker's  Mill  (a  spouting  turnstile)  in- 
vented in  England  in  1743,  and  upon  the  ancient  Norse  Mill  or 
Roulet  Volant  of  France,  where  similar  experiments  resulted  in 
the  invention  of  the  turbine  itself  by  Fourneyron  in  1823. 

Mr.  Wilson  Woodman  informs  us  through  Mr.  Warren  S.  Ely 
that  three  horizontal  water  wheels  set  with  oblique  paddles  were 
used  in  the  gristmill  and  a  saw  mill  at  Wycombe,  Bucks  county, 
in  the  1850's.  These  water  wheels  were  called  "tub  wheels"  and 
though  the  "tub  wheel"  illustrated  in  Knights  Mechanical  Dic- 
tionary is  of  iron  and  shaped  like  an  inverted  cone  with  spiral 
curvilinear  paddles,  these  Bucks  County  wheels  were  made  of 
wood  and  like  the  Norse  mill  wheel  in  the  museum,  enclosed 
their  paddles,  which  were  set  obliquely,  but  not  curved,  in  an 
outer  rim.  As  the  wheels  were  about  eight  feet  in  diameter  the 
mill  stones  could  not  have  been  set  directly  upon  their  vertical 
axes,  as  in  the  Norse  mill,  above  described,  where  the  water 
wheel  has  only  a  dimeater  of  three  feet.  But  there  must  have 
been  counter  gearing  to  get  the  required  velocity  for  the  grind- 
ing stone. 


Roulet  Volant  or  Norse  Mill. 

BY   R.    P.    HOMMEL,    OF   LEHIGPI    UNIVERSITY,    BETHLEHEM,    PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  19,  1918.) 

MR.  R.  P.  HOMMEL.  of  the  Lehigh  University,  was  pres- 
ent at  the  reading  of  the  two  preceeding  papers  and  hav- 
ing  since    found   valuable    information    concerning   the 
Norse  Mill,  in  the  University  Library  at  Bethlehem,  has  kindly 
communicated  to  me,  H.  C.  Mercer,  on  February  7th,  1918,  the 
following  notes  and  two  very  interesting  illustrations.) 

The  distinguishing  feature  of  the  "Norse  Mill"  under  discus- 
sion  is   a   horizontal   wheel   with   a   vertical   axis   on   which   are 


Norse  Mill  as  shown  in  Von  den  Machinen,  by  B.  F. 
Moennich,  Augsburg,  1779,  page  191,  illustrating  the 
Roulet  Volant  or  Norse  Mill. 


ROULET   VOLANT   OR    NORSE    MILL  81 

mounted  the  mill  stones  thus  doing  away  with  any  gear  or  inter- 
mediate mechanism. 

Though  the  origin  of  the  mill  remains  in  doubt  it  has  been  in 
use  for  centuries  in  Europe.  It  is  certain  that  this  type  of  mill 
was  used  in  some  provinces  of  France  as  Provence,  Dauphiny 
and  Brittany,  also  in  Sweden  and  in  Turkey,  though  Moennich, 
writing  in  1779,  on  machines  thinks  it  doubtful  that  this  mill  was 
ever  used  in  Germany. 

In  a  book  colled  Theatrimi  Machinarum  Gcneralc,  by  Jacob 
Leupold,  Leipsig,  1724,  page  206,  the  author  speaking  of  hori- 
zontal w^ater  wheels  says,   (translated) 

"They  were  used  in  places  where  little  water  exists  with  a  high  fall 
namely  in  mountain  regions  as  in  parts  of  Sweden,  Provence  in  France, 
and  such  districts,  where  many  springs  and  small  brooks  run  down 
from  the  mountains  and  in  a  closed  pope  strike  obliquely  against  the 
paddle  and  thus  drive  the  latter  around." 

In  another  book  Von  Den  Machinen,  by  B.  F.  Moennich,  Augs- 
burg, 1779,  page  191,  the  author  illustrating  the  mill  with  the 
first  cut  here  reproduced  says,  page  191    (translated)  : 

"Mills  with  horizontal  water  wheels  in  certain  provinces  of  France, 
Sweden  and  Turkey,  are  much  used  although  we  have  no  quite  reliable 
evidence  as  to  whether  they  were  ever  in  use  in  Germany.  The  grist- 
mills which  were  thus  driven  were  very  simple  as  the  illustration,  here- 
with given  shows.     No  friction  and  little  cost." 

In  a  French  work.  Theatre  dcs  Instnimcns  Matheinatiqucs  ct 
Mechaniques,  by  Jaques  Besson  of  Dauphiny,  Doctor  of  Mathe- 
matics, Lyons  1578,  under  Figure  28  the  author  says  (translated)  : 

"This  mill  is  like  the  preceeding  one,  the  mill  stone  being  on  the 
same  shaft  as  the  water  wheel,  a  fashion  which  may  seem  unknown  to 
some,  but  which  is  common  in  some  places  and  especially  at  Toulouse 
and  also  in  some  villages  where  I  have  seen  them.  However,  (inser- 
tion by  the  French  editor)  our  author  has  improved  it  by  placing  the 
wings  of  the  wheel  on  a  curve.  The  wheel  is,  in  the  figure  (see  second 
illustration)  horizontal  and  distant  from  the  ground  about  1  m. 
7  p.  the  water  coming  from  the  east  (right)  although  it  may  come 
from  where  it  can  it  making  no  difference  from  what  direction  it 
comes.  And  I  say  this  so  that  nobody  should  think  that  it  was 
necessary  that  the  water  should  come  from  the  east." 

Another  French  writer,  D'Arvieux.  in  Curious  Nezcs  of  Travel, 
Part  3,  (Copenhagen  and  Leipsig,  1754)  page  201  (translated) 
says : 


82 


ROULET  VOLANT   OR   NORSE    MILL 


"The  Arabians  have  no  windmills.  These  are  used  in  oriental  coun- 
tries only  where  there  are  no  rivers  though  in  most  places  only  hand 
mills  are  in  use.  Water  mills  which  I  found  on  Mount  Lebanon  and 
Mount  Carmel  are  similar  to  the  ones  which  are  met  with  in  Italy  at 
various  places.  They  are  very  simple  and  cost  little.  The  mill  stone 
and  water  wheel  are  fastened  on  the  same  axle.     The  water  wheel  if 


Representation  of  a  Norse  Mill  as  used  in  the  South  of  France  in  1578, 
from  Theatre  des  Instrumens  Mathematiques,  etc.,  by  Jaques  Besson,  Lyons, 
1578,  Fig-.   28,  illustrating  the  Roulet  Volant  or  Norse  Mill. 


ROULET   VOLANT   OR    NORSE    MILL  83 

such  it  may  be  called,  consists  of  eight  hollow  spoonshaped  boards 
which  are  fastened  at  an  incline  upon  the  axle.  When  the  water 
strikes  these  boards  with  vehemence  the  water  wheel  will  turn  and 
with  it  the   mill   stone   upon   which   the   grain   is   heaped   for   grinding." 

In  the  French  work  Application  dc  la  Mechaniquc,  by  A  Taffe, 
Paris,  1843.  page  200,  the  writer  says  (translated)  : 

"We  call  Turbines  horizontal  wheels  with  paddles  either  straight  or 
slightly  curved  like  those  which  are  used  in  Provence." 

In  another  French  book  Architecture  Hydraulique  by  M.  Belh- 
dor,  (Paris,  1737),  book  2,  chapter  1,  page  301,  the  writer  says 
(translated)  : 

"In  Provence  and  in  a  large  part  of  Dauphiny  the  grist  mills  are  of 
great  simplicity  having  only  a  single  horizontal  wheel  of  six  or  seven 
feet  in  diameter,  etc."  He  also  mentions  a  lever  used  to  raise  the 
wheel  and  the  mill  stone. 

Spons  Dictionary  of  Engineering,  Division  8.  (London,  1874) 
page  3105  says : 

"The  oldest  forms  of  wheels  having  a  vertical  axis  are  found  in  the 
south  of  France  and  in  Algeria.  The  most  simple  of  these,  called 
'Roulets  Volants,'  consist  merely  of  an  upright  shaft  on  which  is  fixed 
the  wheel  having  plain  curved  floats,  driven  by  the  impact  of  a  column 
of  water  discharged  on  the  upper  surface  from  a  wooden  trough  or 
spout.  The  maximum  effect  obtained  from  these  wheels,  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances,  is  9.35,  0.35  of  the  absolute  work  due  to 
the  fall." 

It  was  from  an  examination  of  this  wheel  that  Foiirneyron  was 
led  to  make  those  experiments  which  resulted  in  the  invention 
of  the  modern  turbine  the  first  being  erected  by  him  in  Franche- 
Comte  in  the  year  1827. 

The  Scotch-Irish  may  have  introduced  this  mill  into  North 
Carolina  if  it  is  true  that  it  found  its  way  into  Scotland  from 
Norway.  It  seems  more  likely  however  that  French  Huguenots 
who  emigrated  to  North  Carolina  in  the  eighteenth  century- 
brought  with  them  this- mill  which  in  their  former  home  was  called 
Roulet  Volant  (flying  wheel).  In  the  course  of  time  the  word 
Volant  may  have  been  corrupted  into  willow  by  which  name 
Willow  Wheel  this  mill  is  known  at  the  present  time  in  North 
Carolina. 


Biographical  Notice  of  Joseph  B.  Walter,  M.D. 

BY   B.    F.    FACKENTHAL,    JR.,    SC.D.,    RIEGELSVILLE,    PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  18,  1918.) 

DR.  JOSEPH  B.  WALTER  was  one  of  the  twelve  gentle- 
men who   founded  this   society  38  years  ago.     He  con- 
tinued to  be  one  of  its  most  faithful  and  loyal  members 
down  to  the  time  of  his  passing  away  on  August  18,  1917.     He 
was  one  of  the  original  directors  under  the  charter  of  1885,  and 

at  the  time  of  his  death  was 
serving  as  one  of  its  vice- 
presidents. 

The  first  paper  presented 
before  this  society  was  read 
by  Mr.  Josiah  B.  Smith, 
July  29,  1880.  That  paper 
was,  therefore,  the  first  one 
published  in  Volume  I,  of 
our  proceedings,  and  the 
portrait  of  Mr.  Smith  can 
be  seen  on  page  1  of  that 
volume,  with  the  statement 
that  he  not  only  read  the 
first  paper,  but  was  the  first 
to  sign  the  constitution  of 
the  society.  When  this 
volume  appeared.  Dr.  Wal- 
ter took  exception  to  that 
statement,  claiming  that  he 
was  himself  the  first  to 
sign  the  constitution.  We  then  investigated  the  matter  and  found 
that  both  statements  were  correct.  Mr.  Smith's  name  appears 
first  when  the  society  was  organized  in  1880,  and  Dr.  Walter's 
name  appears  first  in  the  application,  in  1885,  when  the  society 
was  chartered.  I  said  to  him  then,  that  if  in  the  ordering  of 
Providence,  I  was  permitted  to  do  so,  that  I  would  see  that  this 
statement  was  made  and  that  his  portrait  would  also  appear  in 


DR.   JOSEPH  B.  WALTE:R 


BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTICE  OF  JOSEPH   B.   WALTER,   M.D.  85 

our  proceedings.  It  is  therefore  a  great  privilege  that  I  am  per- 
mitted to  carry  out  this  promise  to  our  departed  friend. 

Dr.  Walter  was  born  in  Plumstead  township,  Bucks  county. 
Pa.,  August  30,  1840,  and  was  therefore  77  years  of  age  at  the 
time  of  his  death.  His  paternal  grandfather,  Michael  Walter, 
whose  ancestors  were  residents  of  Alsace,  Germany,  was  one  of 
the  early  settlers  of  Plumstead  township,  where  he  followed  the 
occupation  of  farming.  He  served  for  a  number  of  years  as 
justice  of  the  peace.  John  Walter,  son  of  Michael,  was  born  in 
Plumstead  township  and  in  early  life  learned  the  carpenter's 
trade.  He  married  Mary,  the  daughter  of  Samuel  Beek,  a  resi- 
dent farmer  of  Plumstead  township,  and  had  five  children,  Cath- 
arine, Joseph  B.  (the  subject  of  this  notice),  Levi,  Silas  and 
Emma  B. 

Joseph  B.  resided  with  his  parents  in  Plumstead  township  until 
the  death  of  his  mother,  when  at  the  age  of  about  8  or  9  years  he 
was  taken  into  the  family  of  his  maternal  uncle.  William  Beek, 
who  resided  in  Doylestown.  He  was  there  educated  in  the  pub- 
lic school  and  private  schools,  later  he  became  a  student  at 
Kishacoquillas  Seminary  in  Mifflin  county,  Pa.,  and  in  the  board- 
ing school  of  Rev.  M.  S.  Hofiford  at  Beverly,  New  Jersey. 

In  1859,  at  the  age  of  19  years,  he  entered  upon  the  profession 
of  teaching  school,  devoting  his  leisure  hours  to  the  study  of 
medicine  under  the  direction  of  Dr.  Isaac  S.  Moyer.  His  maiden 
effort  as  a  teacher  was  in  Durham  township,  where  he  taught 
for  one  scholastic  year  beginning  in  the  fall  of  1859,  the  term 
was  for  eight  months,  for  which  he  was  paid  $25  per  month,  out 
of  this  he  had  to  pay  his  board  and  other  expenses.  The  amount 
of  money  he  could  have  saved  out  of  this  small  salary  could  not 
have  gone  very  far  toward  his  medical  education,  and  yet  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  many  of  our  professional  men  resorted  to  teaching 
to  get  funds  to  aid  them  in  their  studies.  All  honor  to  them  for 
their  well  directed  energies.  Later  Dr.  Walter  taught  school  in 
Warrington,  Northampton  and  Southampton  townships. 

In  August  1862  he  put  aside  his  professional  studies  and  en- 
listed for  a  term  of  nine  months  as  a  private  in  Company  E, 
122nd.  Regiment  Pennsylvania  Volunteers,  and  was  mustered  out 
of  service  in  May  1863.  He  then  taught  school  for  a  few  months 
at  Richboro,  Northampton  township,  and  then  re-enlisted  in  the 


86  BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICE  OF  JOSEPH   B.   WALTER,   M.D. 

152nd.  Pennsylvania  Infantry.  During  this  enlistment  he  was  sta- 
tioned, the  greater  part  of  the  time,  at  headquarters  in  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina.  He  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of  sergeant. 
Besides  many  minor  engagements  he  participated  in  the  battles 
of  Fredericksburg,  Chancellorsville  and  Appomatox.  He  was 
mustered  out  of  service  at  the  close  of  the  war. 

Immediately  following  his  return  to  civil  life  he  entered  the 
office  of  Dr.  Isaac  S.  Moyer,  then  of  Plumsteadville,  later  of 
Quakertown,  and  resumed  the  study  of  medicine.  In  1866  he 
entered  the  medical  department  of  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, from  which  he  was  graduated  as  a  medical  doctor  in  the 
spring  of  1868.  He  at  once  associated  himself  with  Dr.  J.  E. 
Smith,  of  Yardley,  and  began  the  practice  of  medicine.  In  the 
spring  of  1870  he  located  in  Solebury  township,  where  he  con- 
tinued to  practice  his  profession  until  1915,  when  owing  to  fail- 
ing health  he  retired. 

Dr.  Walter  was  an  active  member  of  the  Bucks  County  Medi- 
cal Society.  In  a  paper  read  before  the  Bucks  County  Historical 
Society  (Volume  I,  page  509)  he  records  that  on  one  occasion 
he  attended  a  meeting  of  the  medical  society  at  Newtown  when 
but  two  members  were  present,  of  whom  he  was  one.  He  was 
also  a  member  of  the  Lehigh  Valley  Medical  Association  and  the 
Pennsylvania  State  Medical  Society.  He  was  a  close  student  and 
kept  in  touch  with  the  advanced  thought  and  researches  of  his 
profession.  He  was  also  a  member  of  Doylestown  Lodge,  No. 
245,  F.  &  A.  M.,  having  been  entered  over  fifty  years  ago,  and 
of  Doylestown  Chapter,  No.  270,  R.  A.  C.  He  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Commandery  of  Knights  Templar. 

Dr.  Walter  contributed  a  number  of  papers  to  this  society, 
which  may  be  found  in  our  printed  volumes.  He  was  a  poet  of 
some  ability  and  contributed  many  poems  to  the  columns  of  our 
local  papers.  One  of  his  poems  "What  Goeffrey  Chaucer  Saw," 
is  published  in  Volume  I,  page  401,  of  our  proceedings.  At  the 
anniversary  of  the  Bucks  County  Medical  Society  he  wrote  the 
anniversary  poem  entitled  "The  Doctor."  He  was  also  consider- 
able of  a  Shakespearian  student.^ 

On  October  13,  1870,  Dr.  Walter  was  married  to  Miss  Mary 

6  In  1924,  Mrs.  Walter  has  published  74  of  his  poems  in  a  neat  and  attrac- 
tive volume  of  204  pages. 


MAKING    A   DUGOUT    BOAT    IN    MISSISSIPPI  87 

T.  Child,  daughter  of  George  M.  and  Sarah  (Wood)  Child,  of 
Plumstead,  who  survives  him. 

In  politics,  Dr.  Walter  was  a  Republican,  and  took  great  in- 
terest in  the  political  affairs  of  the  township  and  county.  He  was 
a  congenial  companion,  a  close  friend  to  those  who  knew  him 
best,  an  affable,  generous  and  warm-hearted  man. 

Personally  I  knew  him  best  as  a  member  of  this  society,  and 
I  soon  learned  to  know  that  he  could  always  be  depended  upon, 
for  he  had  the  best  interests  of  the  society  at  heart.  This  was 
shown  in  many  ways,  and  not  least  by  the  fact  that  his  library, 
three  hundred  and  eighty  volumes  with  three  book-cases,  and  a 
number  of  other  articles  were  presented  to  the  society  by  his 
widow  at  his  behest. 


Making  a  Dugout  Boat  in  Mississippi. 

BY   FRANK   K.   SWAIN,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  19,  1918.) 

MESSRS.  R.  L.  LEARNED  &  SON,  operating  a  band- 
sawmill  and  dealing  in  sawed  lumber,  shingles  and  lath 
at  Natchez,  Miss.,  use,  at  the  present  time,  a  number  of 
dugout  canoes,  perhaps  fifty  or  more  of  them.  They  are  tied  up 
along  the  Mississippi  river  about  ninety  miles  above  Natchez. 
Three  old  ones  were  lying  in  the  lumberyard  at  the  Natchez  mill 
when  visited  by  me  in  January  1917,  waiting  to  be  repaired  to 
send  up  the  river  again.  The  fourth  one  was  bought  by  me  for 
the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society. 

They  are  operated  by  a  man  standing  upright,  who  with  one 
paddle  pushes  the  canoe  into  the  marshes  or  forest  passing  in  and 
out  among  the  trees  where  it  would  be  impossible  to  go  with  a 
wider  boat.  They  are  treacherous  to  manage  and  turn  over 
easily,  but  most  of  the  negroes  and  some  of  the  white  men  can 
ride  them  standing  up.  The  negroes  can  stand  up  in  them  and 
trim  a  tree  or  cut  it  down  without  the  canoe  taking  water.  They 
are  specially  fine  to  shoot  about  in  during  a  flood  or  high  water 
when  the  water  is  up  to  the  tree  tops,  the  thin  canoe  slipping 
through  the  branches  with  the  man  lying  down.  When  the  tree 
is  cut  and  the  log  ready  to  float  to  the  raft  the  man  "rides"  the 


88  MAKING   A  DUGOUT   BOAT   IN    MISSISSIPPI 

log  with  the  canoe  trailing  behind,  empty.  On  reaching  the 
raft,  at  the  river's  edge,  the  man  again  returns  in  the  canoe  for 
another  log  and  the  operation  is  repeated.  Canoes  were  also  used 
by  the  manager  or  inspector  for  going  about  among  the  trees  to 
inspect,  select  and  mark  the  trees  to  be  cut  down  and  to  instruct 
the  workmen. 

Learned's  mill  dates  back  to  1828  and  is  therefore  ninety  years 
old.  Fifty  years  ago  the  mill  started  to  use  canoes  and  the  one 
bought  for  our  museum  was  one  of  the  first  made  and  used 
there  and  the  workmen  said  that  it  must  be  forty  or  fifty  years 
old.  At  an  earlier  time  boats  may  not  have  been  necessary  as 
there  was  doubtless  ample  timber  close  to  the  mill  on  the  high 
hills  around  Natchez  and  above  along  the  river,  which  are  now 
bare  of  timber  and  under  cultivation.  Boats  made  of  slabs  are 
now  being  built  by  the  Learned  Company  to  replace  these  canoes 
as  they  wear  out.  These  are  wider,  more  bowed,  not  so  long 
and  are  provided  with  one  or  two  seats.  The  best  canoes  were 
made  of  gum  trees  because  that  wood  does  not  split  or  crack 
and  the  wood  is  very  hard.  Canoes  are  also  made  of  cypress  as 
that  wood  does  not  rot  easily.  The  canoe  bought  for  our  museum 
is  made  of  poplar.  These  canoes  being  long  and  narrow  with 
rather  round  bottoms  turn  over  easily,  so  easily,  the  carpenter 
said,  that  a  man  standing  up  with  an  extra  large  chew  of  to- 
bacco in  one  cheek  was  likely  to  overbalance  and  tumble  into  the 
water.  He  called  his  canoe  "Night  Hawk."  I  do  not  know 
whether  that  was  its  name  or  whether  any  of  them  were  named 
or  not. 

Mr.  Henry,  a  superintendent  at  the  mill  had  made  two  or  three 
canoes,  he  now  owns  a  small  one,  quite  new,  painted  a  bright 
green  with  strips  nailed  on  the  sides  so  as  to  raise  it  as  he  is  a 
large  stout  man.  In  the  middle  of  his  boat  there  is  a  board  run- 
ning from  side  to  side  with  a  scooped  out  seat  nailed  to  the 
board.  This  is  shaped  like  the  seat  of  a  Windsor  chair  or  the 
iron  seat  of  a  modern  mowing  machine.  These  canoes  were  all 
adzed  out.  A  colored  "squatter"  or  wood-gatherer  just  below 
the  mill  told  me  that  he  had  made  several  canoes  with  a  round 
or  curved  bladed  adze  but  had  never  burned  or  charred  any,  nor 
had  he  ever  seen  any  made   in  that  way  neither  had  he   seen 


MAKING    A   DUGOUT    BOAT    IN    MISSISSIPPI  89 

hominy  mortars,  bowls  or  any  wooden  ware  made  by  charring, 
but  he  knew  that  the  Indians  charred  their  boats. 

A  colored  man,  splitting  shingles  with  a  "frow"  and  using  the 
shaving  horse  and  draw  knife  to  taper  the  ends,  working  in  a  lit- 
tle hut  on  the  River  road  a  mile  above  Vicksburg,  told  me  he 
had  often  made  hominy  mortars,  wooden  bowls  and  canoes  from 
cypress  and  other  logs  using  a  round  bladed  adze  but  had  never 
charred  any  nor  had  he  seen  any  charred.  He  was  born  a  slave 
in  1856  on  the  plantation  which  afterwards  become  the  National 
Cemetery.  He  owns  a  dugout  at  the  present  time  which  he  made 
himself  but  he  had  loaned  it  to  a  friend  who  had  gone  duck 
shooting  several  miles  up  the  Mississippi  river. 

He  said  that  canoes  were  seldom  used  now,  as  row-boats  made 
of  slabs  could  be  bought  for  very  little  money,  and  would  carry 
two  or  three  persons.  There  are  many  row-boats  in  use  along  the 
Mississippi  river  as  far  as  Vicksburg  but  no  canoes.  Throughout 
the  South,  I  learned  that  many  persons  had  seen  canoes,  or  had 
used  them,  but  all  dated  back  thirty  or  forty  years,  most  of  the 
young  people  had  heard  of  them  but  had  never  seen  them. 

A  good  canoe  made  from  a  perfect  log  with  no  knots,  and 
adzed  smooth  should  last  fiftv  or  more  vears. 


DUGOUT    CANOE    FROM    NATCHEZ,    MISS. 
In  Museum  of  Bucks  County  Historical  Society.     Length,   15  feet  10  inclies. 
Another    similar    dugout    canoe,    also    in    the    Museum,    was    found    in    the 
marshes  along  the  Neuse  river,  near  Newbern.  N.  C,  by  William  A.  Labs. 


Manners  and  Customs  of  Eighty  Years  Ago. 

BY  MARY  S.  woodman/  WYCOMBE,  PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting,   Jan.    19,    1918.) 

THE  following  paper  was  prepared  from  notes  which  were 
in  substance  the  answers  given  by  Miss  Woodman  to  my 
questions  concerning  various  objects  pointed  out  to  her  in 
the  collection  in  our  museum,  when  in  company  with  her  brother 
Wilson  H.  Woodman,  his  wife  and  her  relative,  Miss  Valerie 
Old,  of  Montclair,  New  Jersey.  Miss  Woodman  visited  the 
museum  on  the  afternoon  of  June  1st,  1917.  We  passed  slowly 
along  the  galleries,  stopping  before  the  alcoves  to  rest  upon 
chairs  carried  with  us.  Mr.  Frank  K.  Swain  took  down  a  sum- 
mary of  her  answers  in  pencil.  The  paper  thus  prepared  in 
typewritten  manuscript,  was  presented  and  read  by  Miss  Wood- 
man's sister-in-law,  Mrs.  (Louisa  H.)  Wilson  H.  Woodman. 

H.  C.  MERCER. 
January  24,  1918. 


Sea  Sickness  Cured. — A  glass  canteen-shaped  bottle  filled 
with  bitters  to  cure  sea  sickness  in  crossing  the  ocean  was 
brought  to  this  country  by  Evan  Ap  Evan's  family.  He  came 
here  in  1686  and  the  canteen  was  probably  used  by  him  on  the 
voyage.     He  was  Miss  Woodman's  ancestor. 

Merino  Sheep. — Miss  Woodman's  father  bought  a  half-breed 
merino  lamb  from  a  man  living  on  Long  Island  who  had  im- 
ported full-blood  merinos.  The  wool  was  so  fine  that  the  finest 
machinery  would  not  work  it.  They  put  a  bell  on  the  lamb  and 
it  never  got  cross.  Benjamin  Smith,  her  grandfather,  then  raised 
merinos  and  later  populated  the  neighborhood  with  them.  A 
neighbor  stole  a  merino  lamb  from  their  cellar,  replacing  it  with 
a  native  lamb.  The  theft  was  discovered  later  when  the  man's 
children  boasted  in  school  that  they  too  had  a  merino  lamb.     But 

1  Miss  Woodman  is  the  daugliter  of  Henry  and  Mary  Smith  Woodman, 
and  was  born  in  Buckingham  township  March  29,  1833.  Her  father  was  for 
many  years  a  minister  among  Friends  and  Hved  where  she  still  lives,  with 
her  brother  W^ilson  Woodman  and  his  wife,  near  Wycombe  in  Buckingham 
township,  on  a  farm  lying  along  the  Wrightstown  township  line.  The  hut 
of  Indian  Billy,  the  last  Delaware  Indian  in  Bucks  county,  formerly  stood 
near  the  Woodman  house. — W.  S.  E. 


MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS  OF  EIGHTY  YEARS  AGO  91 

Benjamin  Smith  never  said  a  word  and  did  not  get  the  lamb 
again.  Miss  Woodman  had  a  merino  blanket  at  this  time  made 
from  the  wool  of  the  first  merino. 

Rose  Water. — Her  great-grandmother  had  a  little  still  and 
used  to  distill  rose  water  from  rose  petals  which  she  gathered 
early  in  the  morning.  She  placed  them  on  plates  in  water,  added 
more  from  time  to  time  and  placed  them  in  the  sun  each  day. 
Later  the  water  was  heated,  strained,  distilled  and  bottled  and 
guests  were  given  a  dram  of  rose  water  instead  of  whiskey. 

Reaping. — Sickles  were  not  used  in  her  time  but  her  father 
had  an  old  one  in  the  shed-loft  which  he  would  get  down  once  in 
awhile  to  show  the  children  how  it  had  been  used  in  his  child- 
hood and  an  Irish  woman  working  for  her  mother  reaped  wheat 
with  it  as  late  as  1844.  She  never  saw  a  clover  header  but  her 
father  raised  broom-corn  and  an  old  man  used  to  come  to  the 
house  to  make  brooms  after  the  seeds  had  been  combed  off  the 
broom-corn. 

Sassafras  in  Soap. — She  never  saw  a  winnowing  basket  but 
had  sifted  wood  ashes  many  a  time  through  a  wooden  sieve  for 
making  lye  for  soap.  The  charcoal  was  saved  for  other  pur- 
poses. Sassafras  sticks  were  placed  in  the  bottom  of  the  ash 
hopper,  with  a  little  lime,  so  that  the  perfume  of  the  sassafras 
got  into  the  soap.  The  mucilage  in  the  sassafras  helped  to  "set 
up"  or  harden  the  soap.  Mr.  Woodman  said  the  sassafras  was 
simply  "pow-wow"  but  Miss  Woodman  said  the  sassafras  was 
not  all  "pow-wow"  either.  The  neighbors  called  it  "sassafrac" 
but  her  father  insisted  on  the  family  calling  it  sassafras.  Her 
father  did  not  allow  his  sons  (her  brothers)  to  whistle  in  the 
house  nor  stand  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets.  Bleeding  by 
doctors  was  not  good.  She  remembered  the  cause  of  General 
Washington's  death  and  hated  bleeding. 

Hatter  at  Penn's  Park. — Charles  Reeder,  an  old  hatter  at 
Penn's  Park,  who  helped  build  the  Almshouse,  made  a  new  fur 
hat  for  her  father  in  1840.  Her  two  little  brothers  had  small 
round  "stove  pipe"  hats  made  of  black  fur.  In  Quaker  meeting 
her  father  took  off  his  hat,  stood  up  and  spoke  for  a  minute  or 
two  all  the  time  looking  into  his  hat.  As  he  sat  down  little  Ned, 
her  brother  thought  a  moment  and  then  took  off  his  "stove  pipe" 
hat,  looked  into  it  as  he  stood  up  and  said  in  a  loud  voice  "my 
hat  has  got  an  eagle  in  it." 


92  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS  OF  EIGHTY  YEARS  AGO 

Dunce  Caps. — In  1835  the  first  school  director  (her  father) 
was  elected  in  Buckingham.  He  abolished  dunce  caps  because  he 
thought  it  foolish  and  unnecessary.  Mr.  Woodman  had  worn 
one  for  talking  too  much  at  "Rough  and  Ready  School,"  the 
Cider  Press  school  near  Wycombe. 

Grammar. — The  teacher  of  Concord  school,  Amos  Doan,  said 
"There  wasn't  no  use  in  no  grammar." 

Pumps. — Chalkley  Twining,  of  Mozart,  who  succeeded  James 
Conard,  made  the  last  bored-out  wooden  pumps. 

Shoes. — Thomas  Foster,  of  Cedar  Lane,  (a  road  leading  from 
Penn's  Park  to  Rushland),  used  to  come  to  the  house  to  make 
shoes  for  the  whole  family  as  late  as  1843.  The  comet  made  its 
appearance  at  this  time,  1843.  It  was  called  "Miller's  Fire." 
Foster  was  at  the  Woodman  place  at  the  time.  He  brought 
Charlie  Matty,  a  journeyman,  with  him,  also  his  own  son  and 
some  times  another  boy  as  apprentices.  Shoemakers  carried  dif- 
ferent sized  lasts  but  the  Woodman  family  had  their  own  and 
her  brothers  kept  theirs  in  the  shed-loft.  They  had  a  shoemak- 
er's bench  made  and  kept  there  for  the  shoemaker.  Some  people 
had  rights  and  left  made  but  her  father  would  not.  He  reversed 
his  shoes  every  morning  so  they  would  not  set  or  shape  to  the 
feet.  In  1848  and  1849,  the  harnessmaker,  the  tailor,  and  the 
shoemaker  came  to  the  house  at  the  same  time  to  make  harness, 
coats  and  shoes.  At  that  time  her  father  and  mother,  with  the 
other  children,  went  sleighing  to  visit  friends  in  Chester  county. 
Miss  Woodman,  then  ten  years  old,  remained  at  home  with  her 
grandmother.  Old  Tommy,  the  shoemaker,  staying  there  at  the 
time,  kept  house.  The  world  was  supposed  to  burn  up  with 
"Miller's  Fire"  and  that  evening  on  going  to  the  barn  she  saw 
the  whole  western  sky  a  flame  of  fire  and  badly  frightened  she 
ran  into  the  house  to  tell  her  grandmother  who  only  laughed,  as 
it  was  nothing  but  a  beautiful  winter  sunset  and  not  the  comet. 

Tombstones  at  Penn's  Park. — Amos  Doan,  a  teacher  at  Con- 
cord school,  pulled  up  the  tombstones  in  the  old  graveyard  at 
Penn's  Park  together  with  the  wall  surrounding  it  and  had  them 
hauled  away.  He  made  up  a  frolic  to  get  men  to  help  haul  the 
stones  and  to  wall  up  a  bank  along  the  road  at  the  present  Jacob 
Livezey's  house.  Previous  to  this  he  had  pulled  up  the  stones 
and  thrown  them  in  a  heap  and  Edward  Atkinson,  a  boy,  saw 


MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS  OF  EIGHTY  YEARS  AGO  93 

men  unloading  stones  at  the  bank  and  others  driving  away  from 
the  graveyard  and  knew  the  stones  came  from  the  old  graveyard 
wall.  Later  when  the  graveyard  was  plowed  over  and 
cultivated  Doan's  wife  and  daughter,  would  never  eat  bread, 
made  from  grain  grown  in  this  -field.  Bob  Houpt  who  came  to 
Penn's  Park  from  Chester  county,  said  he  built  a  stone  marked 
"Zebulon  Heston"  into  the  wall  of  the  old  Gaine  housed  The 
Heston  stone  was  supposed  to  come  from  the  Penn's  Park  grave- 
yard but  many  doubted  this  story  with  many  others  told  by  Houpt 
because  he  loved  to  brag  and  cause  a  sensation.  John  Chap- 
man's house  was  at  the  spring,  the  present  Ruckman  farm. 

William  Linton's  School. — William  Linton  kept  a  Latin 
school  called  Wrightstown  Boarding  School  in  1772.  One  win- 
ter he  had  six  boarders,  and  several  other  pupils  came  on  horse- 
back. The  building  was  made  of  logs  with  clapboards  and  had 
three  dormer  windows  of  four  lights  each  in  the  garret  room 
where  the  boy  boarders  slept  in  four  beds.  Miss  Woodman's 
father  was  a  pupil  there,  also  William  Shriner,  afterwards  a 
Quaker  preacher.  There  was  no  glass  in  the  dormer  windows 
and  beds  were  often  covered  wath  snow,  nevertheless  the  rule 
was  that  the  door  should  be  kept  open  for  ventilation  and  the 
boys  took  turns  sleeping  in  the  draft  at  the  door. 

End  of  Open  Fire  Cooking. — At  Miss  Woodman's  home  egg 
custards  were  baked  in  a  bake  oven.  The  crusts  were  first  put  in 
on  the  wooden  shovel  and  then  the  custard  was  poured  in  with  a 
large  long  handled  dipper.  Tenplate  stoves  were  sometimes  used 
for  cooking  but  she  preferred  cooking  in  the  open  fire  which  was 
last  used  for  cooking  in  her  house  in  1848.  The  fire  place  was 
then  boarded  in  and  they  bought  their  first  cook  stove,  although 
a  tenplate  stove  had  been  used  at  odd  times  at  least  two  years 
earlier,  1846  to  1848.     She  never  saw^  a  hand  corn  mill. 

Slaves. — Her  parents  were  Abolitionists.  In  her  younger  days 
the  negroes  were  natives,  having  been  here  a  long  time.  They 
ate  at  the  same  table  with  white  people  and  were  considered  one 
of  the  family  as  long  as  they  behaved  themselves.  She  often 
tended  the   colored   washwoman's  baby   when   she   came   to   the 

1  The  old  Gaine  house  stood  on  the  west  side  of  the  turnpike  in  Penn's 
Park  at  its  intersection  with  the  road  to  Rushland.  Cyrus  Gaines  house 
and  store  were  directly  opposite  across  the  Rushland  road  and  the  latter 
Charles  Gaine's  house  is  some  distance  down  the  turnpike  toward  the 
Neshaminy. — W.    S.    E. 


94  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS  OF  EIGHTY  YEARS  AGO 

house  to  do  the  washing.  Old  Corn,  a  colored  man,  a  member 
of  Wrightstown  Meeting,  was  the  son  of  a  colored  slave  be- 
longing to  the  Hickst  family  and  was  born  on  the  ship  when  the 
Hickst  family  came  over  from  Cornwall,  England,  and  was 
named  Cornwall.  The  Hikst  family-  owned  slaves  and  were  not 
Quakers.  This  family  also  owned  Indian  Billy's  graveyard.  Dur- 
ing the  time  of  the  "underground  railroad"  a  southern  negro 
came  to  the  house  of  a  neighbor  also  an  Abolitionist.  The  man 
and  his  wife  were  both  ill  and  there  was  no  one  else  to  lead  him 
through  the  dark  forest  to  the  next  "station"  except  their  daugh- 
ter, sixteen  years  old  who,  without  fear,  went  with  him  for  sev- 
eral miles  in  the  dark  night  on  foot  and  in  the  rain,  choosing 
paths  farthest  from  houses  to  avoid  detection.  The  man  reached 
Canada  and  later  sent  word  back  to  the  family  of  his  safe  arrival. 
Making  Green  Ointment. —  (This  note  by  Miss  Woodman 
was  not  taken  on  June,  1917,  but  added  later,  and  read  by  Mrs. 
Wilson  H.  Woodman,  at  the  meeting.)  The  ointment  was  used 
for  aches  and  pains,  earache,  swelled  faces,  swelled  neck-glands, 
rheumatism,  burns,  sore  udder  of  the  cow,  etc.  The  following 
herbs  were  gathered  the  day  before  the  ointment  party :  1  Solo- 
mon's Seal  and  Jacob's  Ladder ;  2.  Vervain  (then  and  there  pro- 
nounced Vervine),  the  leaves  of  which  were  also  used  for  boils; 
3.  Daisy,  a  small  and  scarce  species  growing  only  on  "Pine  Hill," 
a  hill  on  the  Woodman  Farm  planted  by  one  of  Mr.  Woodman's 
ancestors,  with  one  of  the  smaller  species  of  pine,  not  white 
pine ;  4.  Cureall  or  Healall ;  5,  Comf  rey,  the  root  of  which  only 
was  used,  grown  in  the  garden ;  6,  Spikenard.  All  these  herbs 
(then  and  there  pronounced  "yarbs")  except  1,  3,  4  were  grown  in 
the  garden.  On  the  morning  following  the  gathering,  a  party  of 
ointment  (pronounced  Eintment")  makers,  all  bringing  contri- 
butions of  butter,  came  to  the  house  and  the  freshly  gathered 
herbs,  of  yesterday  were  very  finely  chopped,  generally  by  the 
women.  About  half-a-bushel  of  these  herbs  were  put  in  a  large 
iron  pot,  together  with  all  the  butter  brought  to  the  meeting,  and 
cooked  for  a  long  time,  continuously,  until  all  the  juice  of  the 
herbs  was  boiled  out.     Bowls  were  then  brought  and  filled  with 

2  This  family  who  spelled  the  name  "Hickst"  should  not  be  confounded 
with  the  old  Quaker  family  of  Hicks.  Charles  Hicks  from  Cornwall,  Kn-?- 
land,  married  one  of  the  Kemble  girls  and  through  her  inherited  part  of  the 
large  Kemble  tract  in  the  southwest  corner  of  Buckingham  near  the  Wood- 
man farm. — W.   S.   E. 


CUPPING  AND  BLEEDING  95 

quantities  of  the  ointment  and  distributed  to  the  persons  present, 
according  to  the  quantity  of  butter  brought  by  each. 


Cupping  and  Bleeding. 

BY   GEORGE    M.    GRIM,    M.D.,   OTTSVILLE,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,   Jan.    19,    1918.) 

THE  progress  in  the  therapeutic  art,  as  opposed  to  the  meth- 
ods pursued  by  pioneer  doctors  ;  the  advancement  in  surgery, 
compared  with  the  barber  surgeon  ;  modern  medicine  as  com- 
pared with  the  crude  methods  of  our  forefathers,  is  a  subject 
which  would  in  itself  make  an  interesting  paper ;  but  today  we 
wish  to  consider  only  two  of  the  means  of  healing,  practiced  in 
recent  years,  which,  too,  apparently  will  soon  pass  to  the  medical 
junk  pile. 

Bleeding,  up  to  the  past  fifteen  or  twenty  years  was  a  "sheet 
anchor"  as  it  was  termed,  in  a  great  many  diseases.  The  doctor's 
lance  occupied  as  important  position  as  his  thermometer  today ; 
and  it  was  used  in  a  great  variety  of  diseases.  A  doctor  upon 
his  daily  rounds  then,  would  have  missed  a  lance  more  than  a 
thermometer  today,  having  use  for  it  probably  a  half  dozen  times 
during  his  rounds.  They  were  the  days  of  bleeding  and  the  lance 
was  used  freely  in  fevers,  pneumonia,  apoplexy,  all  congestive 
diseases,  fits  of  all  kinds,  vertigo,  sunstroke,  and  in  fact,  at  one 
time  it  was  a  matter  of  routine  practice  in  almost  all  diseases. 
Later,  the  physician  began  to  select  his  cases,  using  it  only  when 
particularly  indicated,  as  in  plethoric  conditions,  pneumonia,  ap- 
oplexy, etc.  In  the  indiscriminate  use  of  the  lance  there  were,  no 
doubt,  -patients  bled  that  should  not  have  been,  but  as  a  thera- 
peutic measure,  it  then  occupied,  and  still  occupies,  an  important 
position  in  treating  certain  selected  cases  ;  and  if  patients  formerly 
died  from  the  lances  use,  some  die  now  because  it  is  not  used. 
Personally,  I  have  never  seen  any  of  the  failures  from  blood 
letting,  but  have  witnessed  some  remarkable  reliefs.  As  a  boy, 
I  held  the  basin  for  my  father  in  the  office  many  time,  and  heard 
the  remark  after  the  operation,  "Doctor,  I  feel  fine — quite  like  a 


96  CUPPING  AND  BLEEDING 

different  person"  and  their  actions  and  appearances  would  indi- 
cate the  same  result.  There,  too,  was  a  class  of  elderly  persons 
who  would  come  for  their  bleeding  three  or  four  times  a  year, 
suffering  from  dizziness,  vertigo,  short  breath  on  exertion,  gen- 
eral fullness  and  oppression  in  the  head,  symptoms  of  what  would 
now  be  termed  high  pressure. 

My  father,  who  practiced  towards  the  end  of  the  bleeding  age, 
and  when  it  was  considered  malpractice  to  bleed  in  fevers,  often 
remarked  that  he  never  witnessed  anything  so  remarkable  as  the 
relief  he  himself  received  when  bled  by  the  old  family  doctor  in 
scarlet  fever.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  in  my  mind  that  a  toxic 
blood  removed  from  the  veins  must  be  for  the  good  of  the  patient. 

My  first  personal  experience  in  bleeding  was  in  epilepsy.  Two, 
big,  fat,  plethoric  girls  in  their  teens.  My  father  started  me  on 
these  as  my  cases  to  experiment  upon,  on  my  return  from  medical 
college,  as  every  young  doctor  needs  some  real  material  to  render 
his  book  training  more  actual.  He,  himself,  had  started  the  treat- 
ment after  they  had  continued  getting  their  fits  three  or  four 
times  a  week  in  spite  of  the  use  of  bromides  and  other  sedatives. 
He  knew  that  bleeding  would  help  them  from  his  first  experi- 
ment, when  the  lance  accidentally  striking  the  artery  had  ex- 
tracted such  a  quantity  of  the  toxic  fluid  that  no  fits  returned  for 
one  year.  This  seemed  to  prove  to  him  that  bleeding  at  selected 
intervals  would  be  beneficial  and  he  put  me  "on  the  job."  My 
experience  could  only  confirm  the  accuracy  of  his  diagnosis,  or 
conclusion  as  to  beneficial  results  of  bleeding.  There  is  no  doubt, 
that  bleeding  in  certain  cases  is  very  useful,  and  is  today  often 
a  neglected  remedy.  The  pendulum  has  swung  to  the  opposite 
extreme.  Modern  medical  teachers  must  be  somewhat  at  fault, 
as  the  modern  physician  often  knows  little  of  the  science  or  its 
technique. 

Blood  letting  is  generally  considered  under  general  or  local  con- 
ditions. Medical  blood  letting  is  performed  by  means  of  either 
the  spring  lance,  thumb  lance,  or  bitoury  (a  slender  surgical 
knife).  One  of  the  most  superficial  veins  of  the  arm,  or  dorsum 
of  foot,  generally  the  large  superficial  vein  at  the  elbow,  is  usually 
selected;  the  patient  sitting  on  a  chair  (unless  ill  in  bed)  places 
his  arm,  easily,  upon  the  back  of  another  chair,  a  bandage  is  ap- 
plied about  four  inches  above  the  elbow  sufficiently  tight  to  con- 


CUPPING  AND  BLEEDING  97 

strict  the  vein  but  not  the  artery.  The  vein  then  becomes  very 
prominent;  the  lance  is  placed  directly  over  this  (generally  diag- 
onally) and  sprung.  The  blood  will  flow  freely  into  a  basin  held 
by  an  assistant.  The  quantity  allowed  to  flow  depends  upon  the 
condition  of  the  patient,  but  generally  a  half  basin  full,  or  the  drain 
is  continued  until  the  patient  begins  to  feel  a  little  light  headed 
or  symptoms  of  approaching  syncope  appear.  A  compress  is 
now  placed  over  the  aperture  and  a  bandage  applied  which  im- 
mediately stops  the  flow  of  blood.  The  arm  should  be  carried  in 
a  sling  or  kept  inactive  for  twelve  to  twenty-hour  hours. 

Local  blood  letting  is  performed  by  cupping,  by  leeches  or  by 
incisions  with  a  small  sharp  scalpel. 

Cupping  is  performed  upon  almost  any  part  of  the  body  not  too 
bony.  A  vacuum  is  produced  by  a  small  piece  of  paper,  or  a  wad 
of  cotton  saturated  with  alcohol,  lighted  and  thrown  into  the  cup 
or  lighted  within  it  and  the  cup  quickly  attached  to  the  spot  se- 
lected. The  flame  immediately  goes  out  when  the  cup  is  placed 
on  the  skin  and  the  vacuum  produced  sucks  the  flesh  into  the  cup. 
This  suction  for  five  or  ten  minutes  produces  a  considerable  flow 
of  blood  to  that  point  and  the  part  within  the  cup  swells  up  into 
a  large  blood  swelling.  The  operation  may  stop  here  and  this  is 
what  is  known  as  "dry  cupping,"  and  has  the  general  effect  upon 
the  system  of  mustard  or  any  application  that  draws  the  blood 
from  the  general  circulation  to  a  local  portion  of  body.  In  "wet 
cupping"  the  scarifyer  is  placed  upon  these  swellings  of  dilated 
blood  vessels  and  when  snapped  the  dozen  or  sixteen  little  knives 
pierce  these  superficial  vessels  and  bleeding  ensues ;  the  cup  is 
re-applied  in  the  same  manner  as  above  and  under  the  efifects  of 
its  suction  the  blood  flows  freely  and  the  cup  fills  up.  It  may 
be  washed  oflf  and  re-applied  if  more  blood  is  desired.  Usually 
from  one-half  to  an  ounce  of  blood  is  removed  by  each  cup.  It  is, 
at  times,  a  valuable  local  procedure  and  is  used  in  pneumonia, 
pleurisy,  rheumatism  and  a  variety  of  complaints.  A  few  years 
ago  we  had  the  "cupper,"  a  man,  or  more  often  a  woman  who 
followed  it  as  a  business  and  responded  to  the  calls  of  those  de- 
siring the  treatment.  Instead  of  the  alcohol  flame,  the  vacuum  is 
produced  in  some  cups  by  a  syringe  attached  to  a  stopcock  at  its 
top  or  by  a  rubber  bulb  attached  to  the  top  of  cup. 

My  last  case  of  cupping  was  but  a  few  months  back  in  a  case 


98  CUPPING  AND  BLEEDING 

of  high  pressure  with  fullness  in  head  and  falling  feeling.  I 
cupped  the  back  of  the  neck  and  over  the  shoulder  and  removed 
about  one-half  to  two-thirds  of  a  pint  of  blood.  It  produced  con- 
siderable benefit. 

LEECHING. 

The  leech  or  blood  sucker,  as  popularly  known,  is  a  little  ani- 
mal cupper.  They  make  a  nice  little  puncture,  apply  their  cup, 
and  suck  till  full  and  then  fall  off.  More  considerate  than  that 
more  intelligent  leech  who  wont  fall  off  when  full,  or  stop  his 
blood  sucking  practices. 

The  little  animal  is  still  sought  for,  and  its  use  is  a  favorite 
measure  for  the  local  abstraction  of  blood  by  many  doctors  and 
their  patients. 

Leeches  may  be  applied  to  any  part  of  the  body.  They  have 
been  very  popular  in  inflammation  not  particularly  applicable  to 
cupping,  for  instance  conjunctiviation,  or  inflammation  around 
the  eye  and  nose.  The  operation  sometimes,  however,  leaves  a 
little  scar,  and  this  might  not  be  desired  in  a  beautiful  face. 
This,  is,  however,  not  likely  if  the  leech  is  left  on  until  it  falls  off. 
I  am  told  a  great  many  modern  drug  stores  in  the  city  have 
leeches  in  stock,  an  indication  that  their  use  is  being  utilized,  and 
may  mean  that  they  are  being  prescribed  by  certain  present-day 
physicians.  They  are  generally  easily  applied,  but  if  they  do  not 
readily  take  hold  a  little  smear  of  blood  will  immediately  attach 
them.  They  will  relieve  a  local  congestion '  very  readily  of  its 
over-supply  of  blood. 

The  American  leech  in  northern  latitudes  is  taken  from  creeks, 
etc.,  in  summer.  A  great  many  doctors  preferred  the  French, 
Swiss,  or  German  leeches.  They  were  more  active  and  took  a 
hold  better.  The  American  leech  often  has  to  be  coaxed  to  be- 
gin operations  by  applying  warm  milk  or  blood. 

Leeches  are  at  present  supplied  to  the  trade  by  many  drug 
firms,  and  are  used  pretty  extensively  today. 

NOTE  ON   CUPPING  AND  BLEEDING  BY  DR.    MERCER 

The  accompanying  illustration  shows  H  and  AAA  nine 
cupping  vessels  of  glass  to  be  used  with  the  fire  method,  from 
Dr.  Walter,  of  Solebury,  Bucks  county,  about  1870.    the  diameter 


Cupping  Vessels  and  Instruments  illustrating  note  on  the  paper 
by  Dr.  George  M.  Grim. 


A  &  H — Glass  Cupping  Vessels. 
B  &    C — Scarifier  and  Case. 

D — Gla.'^s      Cupping      Vessels 
wiih      perforated      tops 
and   brass   rim. 
E  &  F — Thumb   Lancet   and   Case. 
G — Scarifier  and  Case. 

N — Bottle     of     Spirits 


I — Glass   Cupping   Vessel,    per- 
forated  top. 

J — Tin   Cupping  Vessels. 

L, — Wooden      Cupping      Vessels 
with    rubber    bulbs. 

M — Hard  Rubber  Cupping  Ves- 
sels, 
for    igniting  cotton. 


CUPPING  AND  BLEEDING  99 

of  the  largest  glass  is  two  inches.  J.  six  cupping  vessels  of  tin 
(fire  method)  Pottsville,  Penna.,  about  1800.  L,  three  wooden 
cups  with  rubber  bulbs  for  suction  without  fire,  Lancaster,  Penna., 
about  1850.  M,  two  hard  rubber  cups  (fire  method)  Lancaster, 
Penna.,  about  I85O.  D  D,  in  the  box,  two  glass  cupping  vessels 
with  perforated  tops  cemented  upon  brass  rims  (bees  wax  show- 
ing on  the  rims)  for  attachment  to  a  syringe  in  the  suction  pro- 
cess without  tire.  The  syringe  was  probably  mounted  with  a  stop 
valve  but  no  old  cupping  syringes  have  as  yet  been  found  for  the 
museum.  They  are  described  as  used  with  brass  attachments  and 
valves  before  the  discovery  of  india-rubber  in  the  1751  edition 
of  Chambers'  Encyclopaedia.  The  syringe  itself  is  very  ancient 
and  described  by  Hero  of  Alexandria  about  150  B.  C.  I,  a  glass 
cupping  vessel  used  by  Mrs.  Jane  Mundy  near  Rush  Valley, 
Bucks  county,  about  1800.  Artificially  perforated  on  the  top. 
Method  of  air  exhaustion  unknown.  Knight's  mechanical  dic- 
tionary says  that  the  Chinese,  Hindoos  and  Malays,  about  1877, 
in  thus  drawing  blood  sucked  with  the  mouth  through  a  tube 
applied  to  a  copper  cup  and  that  the  ancient  Egyptians  sucked 
directly  wath  the  mouth  upon  perforated  cups  of  cow's  horns, 
closed  with  a  leather  valve.  The  explorer  of  Thibet,  Father  Hue, 
saw,  in  1844,  the  Thibetans  proceeding  in  the  same  way  and 
closing  the  hole  with  pellets  of  chewed  paper.  But  no  tradition 
of  sucking  with  the  mouth  in  this  process  has  yet  been  heard  of 
in  Bucks  county,  and  no  cow  horn  cups  have  been  found.  B  B, 
in  the  box,  two  scarifiers,  brass  instruments  releasing  by  a  trig- 
ger numerous  small  knives  for  scarifying  the  congested  part  after 
the  first  application  of  the  cup.  This  instrument  must  have  been 
invented  about  1715  or  before  1750  since  Chambers  Encyclopedia 
of  1751,  possibly  quoting  the  1721  editions,  says  that  before  his 
publication  small  cutting  wheels,  and  we  infer  scarifying  knives, 
were  used.  No  illustration  or  mention  of  the  scarifier  or  valve 
syringe  appears  among  the  described  surgical  instruments  in 
the  English  translation  of  La  Vagnions  Complete  Surgery  of 
1699  or  in  William  Salmon's  Ars  Chirurgica  published  in  Lon- 
don in  1698.  B,  in  box  at  right,  leather  case  for  scarifier.  Dr. 
Walter,  Solebury,  about  1870.  B  and  C,  in  box  left,  brass 
scarifier,  inscribed  "G.  R.  Wa  Wun"  and  case,  Dr.  Muehlenberg. 
Lancaster,  about   1850.     Box  exclusive  of  articles  AAA  and 


100  CUPPING  AND  BLEEDING 

upper  BBC,  shows  the  cupping  case  of  Dr.  J.  B.  Walter,  of 
Solebury,  about  1870.  The  width  of  the  box  is  nine  inches.  N, 
his  bottle  with  spirits  for  igniting  cotton  for  cupping.  G,  scarify- 
ing knife  of  unknown  ownership.  E,  thumb  lancet  for  bleeding, 
not  cupping.  It  lies  in  its  leather  case  and  was  used  by  Rudolph 
Bensel  of  New  Galena,  Bucks  county,  about  1850.  F,  thumb 
lancet  case  of  leather  stamped  with  Traue  Nicht  Es  Stecht, 
translated  "Look  out  it  pricks." 

Mr.  Leidy  Sheip,  of  Decatur  street,  Doylestown,  informs  us 
through  Mr.  Mann  that  he  practiced  cupping  with  tin  cups  as  did 
his  sister,  Mrs.  Amos  Baringer  and  his  mother.  His  last  opera- 
tion about  thirty  years  ago  being  upon  his  brother  for  a  local 
inflammation.  He  heated  the  cup  with  lighted  paper  and  used 
a  scarifier.  The  father  of  Mrs.  Amos  Baringer,  Jr.,  Oliver 
Hetrick  of  New  Britain,  also  cupped  with  tin  cups  and  lighted 
paper.  Mr.  Sheip  had  seen  glass  cups  but  none  of  other  material 
and  had  never  heard  of  producing  the  suction  directly  by  the  lips. 

The  cupping  process  is  very  ancient.  It  is  described  by  Hippo- 
crates, 413  B.  C.  and  Hero  of  Alexandria  about  150  B.  C.,  speaks 
of  cupping  with  or  without  fire.  The  fire  method  is  well  illus- 
trated as  follows.  Fill  a  saucer  with  water  and  a  glass  tumbler 
with  crumpled  paper.  Light  the  latter  and  set  the  tumbler  up- 
sidedown  in  the  saucer.  The  fire  goes  out  and  the  water  rises 
in  the  glass. 


On  information  just  received  July  24th  from  Dr.  George  H. 
Packard,  White  Rock,  Madison  county.  North  Carolina,  we 
learn  that  the  process  of  cupping  and  bleeding  is  not  now  known 
amongst  the  mountain  people  of  Madison  county,  western 
North  Carolina. 


George  Taylor,  Signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

BY  WARREN   S.   ELY,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  19,  1918.) 

GEORGE  TAYLOR  was  born  in  the  year  1716.  The  facts 
in  reference  to  the  first  twenty  years  of  his  life  rest  al- 
most wholly  on  family  tradition.  According  to  the  most 
reliable  information  obtainable,  the  place  of  his  nativity  was 
somewhere  in  Ireland,  where  his  father  was  a  well-to-do-barrister.^ 
He  received  a  good  English  education  and  was  desired  by  his 
father  to  prepare  himself  for  the  medical  profession.  To  this 
he  was  very  averse  and  for  that  or  some  other  reason  ran  away 
from  home  and  took  passage  on  a  sailing  vessel  bound  for 
Philadelphia,  at  which  port  he  landed  sometime  in  the  year  1736. 

The  several  biographies  of  George  Taylor,  including  the  one 
in  Volume  I,  of  our  publications,  pp.  326-332,  prepared  by  the 
late  Charles  Laubach,  have  stated  that  he  came  to  this  country  as 
a  redemptioner  and  that  soon  after  his  arrival  he  was  employed 
at  the  Durham  Iron  Works  as  a  furnace  filler.  Having  recently 
discovered  that  this  and  other  statements  concerning  him  con- 
tained in  the  several  biographies  were  incorrect,  I  will  endeavor 
to  clear  up  the  early  history  of  this  Bucks  county  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  also  give  some  newly  discov- 
ered facts  in  reference  to  his  later  life. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  he  came  as  a  redemptioner,  (that  his 
services  for  a  term  of  years  were  sold  on  his  arrival  for  the  pay- 
ment of  his  passage),  nor  that  he  served  for  a  number  of  years 
or  at  any  time,  as  a  common  laborer.  A  relative  of  the  family, 
who  died  in  1862  at  an  advanced  age,  is  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  there  was  no  such  tradition  in  the  family  of  Col.  Taylor. 
This  lady  born  in  Easton  during  the  lifetime  of  Col.  Taylor  and 
was  during  her  long  life  intimately  associated  with  the  family, 
and  therefore  her  statement  is  worthy  of  consideration. 

Soon  after  his  arrival  in  Pennsylvania,  George  Taylor  found 
employment  with  Samuel  Savage,  Jr.,  at  Warwick  furnace,  in 
East  Nantmeal  township,  Chester  county.     What  the  nature  of 

1  Later  information  leads  to  the  belief  that  he  was  born  in  England.  See 
Dr.  Fackenthal's  paper,  page  114  hereof. 


102         GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

his  initial  employment  at  the  furnace  was  cannot  be  determined, 
but  the  fact  that  he  was  book-keeper  "in  1739  and  qualified  to 
take  charge  of  the  blast  furnace  and  of  Coventry  forge  as  man- 
ager several  years  later  and  retain  that  position  for  ten  years  or 
more  is  evidence  that  his  position  was  a  responsible  one. 

Samuel  Savage,  Jr.,  was  a  son  of  Samuel  Savage,  Sr.,  who  was 
associated  with  his  father-in-law  Thomas- Rutter  in  the  establish- 
ment of  the  iron  works  at  Manatawny,  Berks  county,  in  or  about 
the  year  1718,  and  died  there  in  1720,  leaving  to  survive  him 
his  widow  Ann,  nee  Rutter,  and  six  children,  Samuel,  Rebecca. 
Thomas,  Joseph,  Ruth  and  John. 

Ann  (Rutter)  Savage,  the  widow  married  about  1721,  Samuel 
Nutt,  of  Coventry,  Chester  county,  who  with  William  Branson 
had  established  the  Christine  furnace  and  Coventry  forge  on 
French  creek  about  1720.  His  nephew  and  heir,  Samuel  Nutt, 
Jr.,  married  Rebecca  Savage,  daughter  of  Mrs.  Nutt  by  her 
former  marriage.  Samuel  Nutt  by  his  will  dated  September  25, 
1737,  devised  to  his  wife  Ann  "the  halfe,  my  shear,  of  a  hun- 
dred acres  whereon  the  forge  standeth  and  the  halfe  of  the  land 
or  tract  whereon  the  Furnace  standeth"  some  other  real  estate 
and  "one  hundred  acres  on  the  north  side  of  the  south  branche 
of  French  Creek  in  such  place  as  she  shall  think  proper  to  Build 
a  Furnace  on  *  *  *."  His  nephew,  Samuel  Nutt,  and  Re- 
becca, his  wife,  were  made  resuduary  legatees. 

Differences  having  arisen  between  Nutt  and  Branson,  the 
partnership  in  the  iron  works  was  dissolved  and  each  erected 
separate  furnaces.  Branson  erected  Redding  furnace  in  1736-7. 
and  the  furnace  erected  in  1737-8  as  provided  for  in  Samuel 
Nutt's  will  was  called  Warwick  furnace. 

Ann  Nutt  conveyed  a  large  part  or  interest  in  Warwick  furnace 
to  her  son  Samuel  Savage,  Jr..  who  became  its  proprietor  on  its 
completion.  He  also  acquired  a  plantation  in  Coventry  township, 
and  his  brother  Thomas,  who  died  unmarried  in  1739,  devised 
him  a  plantation  in  Nantmeal  township.  Samuel  Savage,  Jr., 
married  prior  to  1733,  Ann  Taylor,  daughter  of  Isaac  Taylor, 
Deputy  Surveyor  General  for  Chester  county,  by  his  wife  Martha 
Roman,  and  granddaughter  of  John  Taylor,  who  came  from  Wilt- 
shire, England,  in  1684,  and  settled  in  Chester  county.  She  was 
a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends  and  was  disowned  for  mar- 


GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE         103 

riage  "out  of  unity"  in  the  year  above  mentioned.  Her  husband, 
Samuel  Savage,  died  leaving  a  will  dated  September  22,  1741, 
which  was  probated  May  26,  1742.  It  devised  to  his  wife,  Ann, 
the  rents,  issues  and  profits  of  his  two  plantations  for  life,  and 
also  the  sole  use,  rents,  issue  and  profits  of  his  share  and  part  in 
the  iron  furnace  called  Warwick  furnace  "to  be  by  her  possest 
and  enjoyed  until  my  son,  Samuel,  shall  arrive  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one  years."  She  was  named  executrix ;  her  brother,  John 
Taylor,  Henry  Hockley  (who  had  married  Esther  Rutter,  aunt 
of  the  testator),  and  John  Potts  (who  had  married  his  sister, 
Ruth  Savage),  were  to  assist  her  and  act  as  trustees  for  the 
children. 

The  widow  (Ann  Savage)  married,  sometime  in  1742,  George 
Taylor,  and  he  in  accordance  with  the  laws  and  usages  of  Colonial 
times  assumed  control  of  his  wife's  business  affairs  and  estate 
including  the  settlement  of  her  former  husband's  estate.  For 
some  part  of  the  period  of  the  minority  of  the  son,  the  furnace 
was  leased,  John  Potts,  the  brother-in-law,  was  the  lessee  in 
1744  and  paid  the  rent  to  George  Taylor,  but  for  a  great  part  of 
the  period  it  was  operated  under  the  management  of  George 
Taylor,  who  was  also  manager  of  Coventry  forge.  Samuel  Nutt, 
Jr.,  died  soon  after  his  uncle,  Samuel  Nutt,  Sr.,  and  the  widow 
Rebecca  (Savage)  Nutt  married  Robert  Grace,  the  friend  of  Dr. 
Benjamin  Franklin,  to  whom  the  great  philosopher  entrusted  the 
manufacture  of  his  scientifically  constructed  iron  fireplaces. 

The  coming  of  age  of  Samuel  Savage,  third,  in  1752,  termi- 
nated Taylor's  proprietorship  of  Warwick  furnace,  and  there 
had  probably  been  some  friction  between  him  and  Mrs.  Nutt  and 
Robert  Grace,  the  other  parties  interested,  as  evidenced  by  the 
following  entry  in  the  day  book  of  Coventry  forge : 

"April  24th.  1752,— Carried  a  letter  to  George  Taylor  from  Anna  Nutt 
and  Robert  Grace  to  discharge  the  sd  Geo.  Taylor  as  manager  for  the 
sd  Nutt  and  Grace  as  their  manager  at  Coventry  Forge  and  the  sd 
Taylor  took  the  letter  from  me  and  said  he  would  write  an  answer  as 
soon  as  he  had  time  to  do  so. 

his 
(Signed)      Michael  X   Dodson. 
Witness,  Jno.  Hunt."  mark 

The  tax  lists  of  Chester  county  for  the  period  covering  the  early 
residence  of  George  Taylor  at  Warwick  are  missing.     His  nam/^ 


104         GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

appears  on  those  of  East  Nantmeal  township,  for  the  years  1747, 
1750,  1753,  and  1754,  but  not  later.  He  was  captain  of  one  of 
the  Associated  Companies  of  Chester  county  in  1747,  of  which 
Samuel  Flower,  later  his  partner  at  Durham,  was  colonel.  Robert 
Grace  was  also  captain  of  a  company  in  the  same  regiment. 

As  above  stated  Mrs.  Taylor's  tenure  of,  and  interest  in  War- 
wick furnace  terminated  at  about  this  time,  though  she  held  a 
life  interest  in  the  two  farms.  In  the  meantime  William  Branson 
had  conveyed  all  his  lands,  furnaces  and  forges  to  his  four 
daughters  and  their  husbands,  Samuel  Flower,  Bernard  Van 
Leer,  Richard  Hockley  and  Lynford  Lardner,  though  the  furnace 
seems  to  have  been  run  in  his  name  until  his  death  in  1760.  It 
was  later  operated  for  several  years  by  Col.  Samuel  Flower, 
but  along  with  Warwick  furnace  and  Coventry  forge  passed  to 
the  ownership  of  Rutter  &  Potts  during  the  Revolution. 

Samuel  Flower,  as  part  owner  of  Redding  furnace,  was  doubt- 
less well  acquainted  with  the  resources  and  abilities  of  George 
Taylor,  and  in  the  spring  of  1755  joined  him  in  leasing  Durham 
iron  works  in  Bucks  county  for  a  term  of  five  years.  The  works 
were  then  owned  by  William  Logan,  Arithony  Morris  and  others 
and  were  operated  under  the  firm  name  of  William  Logan  & 
Company. 

A  letter  written  by  William  Logan  to  Richard  Peters  in  refer- 
ence to  some  surveys  being  made  of  land  adjoining  the  Durham 
tract  under  date  of  11  mo.  10th,  1755,  in  which  he  enclosed  a 
letter  of  George  Taylor,  says : 

"I  just  now  reed,  the  Inclosed  from  Durham.  The  person  that 
writes  it  is  one  in  Company  with  Capt.  Flower,  who  has  leased  Dur- 
ham Works  for  five  years."  (See  Penna.  Arch.  1st.  Series  Vol.  II, 
p.  479.) 

Unfortunately  the  "inclosed"  was  not  published  but  there  is 
abundant  evidence  that  the  writer  "was  George  Taylor.  In  a  long 
statement  of  William  Peters  and  Jacob  Duche  in  reference  to  the 
influence  of  the  Quakers  over  the  Indians  at  the  treaty  at  Easton 
in  November,  1756,  published  in  Pennsylvania  Archives,  1st 
Series,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  274,  is  the  following. 

*  *  *  "And  we  having  been  previously  told  by  ye  Govrs  Secre- 
tary yt  ye  Govr  and  he  had  been  informed  by  Mr.  Taylor,  ye  Iron- 
master at  Durham,  at  whose  house  they  lay  on  their  way  to  Easton 
&c." 


GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  105 

Letters  recently  published  in  "Correspondence  with  Early  Iron 
Masters"  in  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History  and  Bio- 
graphy, include  one  written  from  Durham  by  Geo.  Taylor  under 
date  of  May  6,  1757,  ordering  supplies  for  the  Durham  Company. 
Another  dated  at  Durham  Oct.  8,  1757,  signed  by  Wm.  Harrison, 
the  bookkeeper,  written  to  the  same  parties  begins,  "Mr.  Taylor 

desires  you  to  send  per  bearer ."     Still  another  letter 

by  Harrison  is  dated  Aug.  28.  1757.  x\s  further  proof  that 
George  Taylor  was  at  Durham  in  1757  the  records  of  the  Court 
of  Quarter  Sessions  of  Bucks  county  show^  that  he  was  appointed 
March  17,  1757,  as  one  of  a  jury  to  review  a  road  from  Durham 
through  Springfield,  and  signed  the  return  of  review  June  13, 
1757.  He  was  commissioned  a  justice  of  the  peace  for  Bucks 
county,  February  28,  1761,  and  is  on  record  as  acknowledging  a 
deed  as  such  a  justice  at  Durham,  May  25,  1763. 

In  1763  he  removed  to  Easton,  and  seems  to  have  had  the 
leading  part  in  the  erecting  of  the  courthouse,  though  he  is  not 
named  as  one  of  the  trustees  by  the  Act  of  /Assembly  passed 
March  4,  1763. 

He  was  elected  to  Provincial  Assembly  from  Northampton  in 
1764  and  was  regularly  re-elected  thereafter  until  1770.  He  was 
commissioned  a  justice  of  the  peace  for  Northampton  county, 
November  19,  1764,  and  again  March  15,  1766.  As  a  legislator 
his  eminent  ability  was  at  once  recognized.  1765  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  draw  up  the  address  from  the  Assembly  of  Pennsyl- 
vania to  the  king  on  the  subject  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  this  de- 
mand for  the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  act  does  him  great  credit. 

On  March  10,  1767,  Col.  Taylor  purchased  a  tract  of  331  acres 
of  land  in  what  is  now  the  borough  of  Catasauqua,  Northampton 
County,  on  which  he  had  been  erected  a  substantial  stone  house 
still  standing.  From  the  fact  that  the  George  Taylor  tract  was 
part  of  the  same  original  patent  of  which  a  Nathaniel  Taylor 
owned  part,  it  has  been  assumed,  without  authority,  that  George 
Taylor  was  his  son.  Mrs.  Taylor  died  in  that  Catasauqua  house, 
and  in  1776  he  sold  the  property  to  John  Benezet.  There  is  no 
information  at  hand  to  show  when  he  removed  from  there,  but 
letters  w^ritten  by  him  in  1772,  dated  from  Northamptontown 
(Allentown)  suggest  that  he  may  have  been  living  with  his  son 
James  at  that  place,  James  having  moved  there  from  Easton  in 


106         GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

1772.  At  that  time  Allentown  was  in  Northampton  Comity,  and 
George  Taylor  continued  to  act  as  a  justice  of  the  peace  for  that 
county.  On  March  9,  1774,  he  was  commissioned  by  the  gov- 
ernor with  a  Dedimus  Protcstatuni,  to  administer  the  oaths  of 
office  to  the  new  county  officials. 

The  deed  of  partition  dividing  the  Durham  property  bears  date 
December  24,  1773,  and  early  in  1774  George  Taylor  leased  that 
part  which  had  been  allotted  to  the  Galloways.  He  then  moved 
to  Durham  in  Bucks  County,  where  he  made  his  home  until  1779. 
when  he  moved  to  Greenwich  Township,  New  Jersey,  and  in 
April  1780  moved  to  Easton. 

On  September  21,  1774,  he  was  named  as  a  member  of  the 
Committee  of  Observation  by  the  Committee  of  Safety  of  North- 
ampton County.  He  was  elected  to  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly 
from  Northampton  County  in  1775,  and  represented  that  county 
as  a  delegate  to  the  Provincial  Convention  held  at  Philadelphia 
January  23,  1775.  However,  though  he  continued  a  member  of 
the  Assembly  and  assisted  in  drafting  the  instructions  to  the 
delegates  to  the  Continental  Congress  named  by  that  body,  there 
is  abundance  of  evidence  that  he  was  a  resident  of  Durham  from 
1774  or  early  in  1775  until  1779. 

At  a  regularly  advertised  meeting  of  "The  Officers  of  the 
Different  Associated  Companies  of  Bucks  County,"  held  at  John 
Bogart's  tavern  in  Buckingham,  July  20,  1775.  for  the  purpose 
of  electing  field  officers  for  the  three  battalions  of  said  associa- 
tors,  he  was  elected  colonel  of  the  Third  Battalion,  with  Robert 
Robinson  as  lieutenant  colonel,  John  Tenbrook  as  first  major, 
John  Heany  as  second  major,  and  John  Keller  as  standard  bearer. 

The  advertisement  of  a  post  rider  in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette 
of  August  20,  1775,  "proposes  to  go  from  Philadelphia  to  Allen- 
town  in  Northampton  county,  once  a  week"  gives  among  his 
references  "George  Taylor,  at  Durham. 

While  there  is  no  evidence  that  Colonel  Taylor  ever  saw  any 
active  service  in  the  field  as  commander  of  the  Third  Battalion 
of  the  Bucks  County  Associators,  he  very  evidently  accepted  the 
position,  was  commissioned,  and  took  part  in  the  drilling  and 
organization  of  the  battalion.  He  is  almost  invariably  referred 
to  and  addressed  as  "Coll.  Taylor"  by  his  friends  and  others  in 
their  correspondence  from  the  date  of  his  appointment,  and  is 


GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  107 

referred  to  in  contemporaneous  accounts  by  that  title.  He  was 
probably  selected  by  reason  of  his  military  experience  as  captain 
of  the  associators  in  1747  in  Chester  county.  After  the  battalion 
was  organized  it  was  left  in  command  of  Lieutenant  Colonel  Rob- 
inson, while  Colonel  Taylor  was  occupied  as  a  member  of  Assem- 
bly, a  delegate  to  Continental  Congress,  where  he  showed  marked 
ability,  as  well  as  in  a  number  of  other  positions  of  legislative  and 
diplomatic  character,  and  in  the  management  of  his  furnace  at 
Durham  which  was  the  first  to  turn  out  ammunition  for  the  use 
of  the  patriot  army. 

When  four  of  the  delegates  to  Continental  Congress  from 
Pennsylvania  declined  to  sign  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
George  Taylor  was  one  of  the  delegates  selected  in  their  place 
on  July  15,  1776.  He  immediately  took  his  seat  and  when  the  en- 
grossed copy  of  the  historic  document  was  presented  before  Con- 
gress for  the  signatures  of  the  delegates,  he  signed  it  on  August 
2,  1776.  Some  months  later  he  was  one  of  the  committee  of 
Congress  who  drew  up  resolutions  calling  upon  the  Assembly 
of  the  several  states  to  raise  troops  for  the  defense  of  American 
liberties.  On  January  20,  1777,  he  was  selected  by  Congress  to 
arrange  for  and  preside  at  the  Indian  treaty  at  Easton. 

On  March  4,  1777,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  first  Su- 
preme Executive  Council,  the  executive  department  of  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Pennsylvania  under  the  constitution  of  1776,  from 
Northampton  county.  He  was  one  of  the  most  active  members 
of  this  body  and  in  daily  attendance  of  its  sessions,  filling  im- 
portant positions,  until  about  the  middle  of  April  when  he  came 
home  to  Durham  sick.  The  following  autograph  letter  in  posses- 
sion of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  written  to  Timo- 
thy Matlack,  Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth,  explains  his 
absence. 

"Durham,  May  24th,  1777. 
Sir^ 

I  have  been  confined  to  my  chamber  for  four  weeks  past  by  a  violent 
fever.  I  am  just  now  beginning  to  walk  about.  You  wnll  please  let  his 
Excellency  the  President,  know  that  as  soon  as  my  health  will  permit 
I  will  attend  the  Council. 

I  am  with  great  Respt,  &c, 

Sir,  Your  Most  Humbl  Servt. 

GEO.  TAYLOR." 
To  Timothy  Matlack,  Esqr." 


108         GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

Whether  his  continued  indisposition  prevented  his  returning 
as  promised  in  the  above  letter,  or  whether  it  was  found  more 
advisable  for  him  to  remain  at  the  furnace  in  order  to  more 
rapidly  fill  his  large  contracts  with  the  government  for  round 
shot  does  not  appear,  but  there  is  no  record  of  his  having  ever 
attended  the  Council  after  the  above  date,  and  on  November, 
1777,  Major  Jacob  Arndt,  of  Easton,  was  elected  in  his  stead. 

In  December,  1773,  after  the  Durham  tract  had  been  par- 
titioned among  the  several  owners  and  that  part  on  which  the 
iron  works  and  mines  were  located  adjudged  to  Grace  Galloway, 
daughter  and  heir  of  Lawrence  Growdon  and  wife  of  Joseph 
Galloway,  George  Taylor  leased  the  iron  works  of  Galloway  for 
a  term  of  five  years,  with  the  privilege  of  five  years  more. 

Unfortunately  the  early  records  of  the  Durham  iron  works 
have  not  been  preserved  and  we  have  to  rely  on  contemporaneous 
correspondence  and  accounts  for  the  scanty  scraps  of  history  of 
the  works  down  to  1779. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  George  Taylor  carried  on  a  success- 
ful business  for  five  years  from  1774  to  1778  inclusive,  not  only 
in  the  production  of  pig  iron  and  bar  iron  made  at  the  forges  in 
New  Jersey  in  which  he  was  interested,  but  in  the  sale  of  country 
castings,  and  stoves  (including  Franklin  stoves  which  were  made 
at  Durham).  An  important  department  of  his  business,  which 
was  a  great  feature  of  every  furnace  of  that  day,  was  the  com- 
munity supply  department,  through  which  the  people  of  the 
neighborhood  were  supplied  with  every  article  of  local  consump- 
tion and  industry  from  a  yard  of  tickenburg  or  a  pound  of  sugar 
to  a  gallon  of  whiskey  or  molasses,  there  is  even  a  record  of 
a  hat  obtained  for  Mrs.  Miller  "to  be  somewhat  in  the  fashion." 
There  was  very  little  ready  money  in  those  days  and  the  farmers 
often  paid  for  the  necessities  of  life  and  the  implements  of  their 
industry  by  hauling  iron  or  charcoal  or  cutting  and  "coaling"  the 
immense  quantities  of  wood  needed  at  the  works. 

With  the  very  beginning  of  preparation  for  armed  resistance  to 
British  aggression  in  1775,  Col.  Taylor  prepared  himself  to  manu- 
facture cannon  balls  for  use  of  the  patriot  army.  On  August  2, 
1775,  he  secured  a  contract  from  the  State  Committee  of  Safety, 
estimating  that  he  could  make  the  delivery  at  twenty  pounds  per 
ton,  the  committee  thought  his  bid  too  high  and  requested  him  to 


GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE         109 

reduce  it  to  sixteen  pounds  which  he  readily  agreed  to  do,  but 
found  later  that  he  was  a  considerable  loser  at  that  price  and  on 
October  18,  1775,  the  Commissary  board  "after  consulting  Mr. 
Grubb  and  Mr.  Potts,  iron  masters,  were  of  the  same  opinion 
and  he  was  allowed  eighteen  pounds  per  ton."  He  made  his 
first  shipment  which  consisted  of  18,  24  and  32  pounders  on 
August  25,  1775,  which  is  acknowledged  by  the  Commissary 
Robert  Towers,  this  was  quickly  followed  by  other  shipments  at 
short  intervals,  and  many  tons  were  furnished  long  before  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  And  moreover  his  shipments  seem 
to  have  been  the  very  first  that  were  delivered  by  any  furnace  in 
Pennsylvania.  His  shipments  consisted  of  cannon  balls,  but  I 
also  find  on  the  minutes  of  the  committee  of  safety  that  the 
commissary  of  military  supplies  was  directed  to  w^rite  to  him  to 
send  down  a  sample  of  his  small  cannon  for  inspection,  show- 
ing that  he  also  made  cannon,  but  there  is  no  record  of  his  can- 
non shipments.  The  production  of  shot  and  cannon  balls  also  of 
bar  shot  (consisting  of  two  half  shot  or  cannon  balls  separated 
and  held  together  by  a  strong  square  bar  of  wrought  iron,)  were 
continued  vmder  the  tenure  of  the  Backhouse  &  Company  firm, 
the  account  books  of  which  are  in  possession  of  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society  and  show^  that  hundreds  of  tons  were  furnished 
the  government  1780  to  1782. 

When  Joseph  Galloway,  after  his  strenuous  efforts  to  induce 
Franklin  and  others  to  join  him  in  an  effort  to  secure  redress  of 
the  grievances  of  the  colonies  by  peaceable  means,  had  finally  been 
put  to  flight  by  the  "rabble"  he  so  much  detested,  and  had  taken 
refuge  within  the  British  lines,  he  was  attainted  as  a  traitor  and 
his  property,  including  the  Durham  works,  (held  in  right  of  his 
wife)  was  seized  by  Col.  George  Wall,  Jr.,  the  agent  for  forfeited 
estates.  George  Taylor  claimed  that  he  was  promised  and  en- 
titled to  a  renewal  of  his  lease  just  exiring,  and  set  the  following 
appeal  to  the  Supreme  Executive  Council. 

"To  the  Honble.  the  Supreme  Executive  Council  for  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania. 

The  Petition  of  George  Taylor,  of  Durham,  in  the  County  of  Bucks, 
Humbly  Sheweth, 

That  your  Petitioner  about  five  years  ago,  rented  from  Joseph  Gallo- 
way, late  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  the  Lands  and  Works  called  and 
known   by   the   name   of    Durham    Furnace,   at   the    yearly   rent   of   five 


110         GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  but  from  the  unsettled  state  of  affairs  and 
the  scarcity  of  hands  for  these  two  years  past,  he  was  rendered  unable 
to  carry  them  on  to  any  Advantage,  as  the  last  year  he  made  but  a 
small  quantity  of  shot  for  the  Continental  Navy,  and  the  present  year 
he  has  not  been  able  even  to  blow  the  Furnace.  And  as  your  Peti- 
tioner was  to  have  the  Privilege  under  his  present  Lease,  which  will 
not  expire  until  November  next,  of  having  it  renewed  upon  the  same 
terms  for  five  years  more,  upon  his  giving  five  Months  Notice,  and  as 
your  Petitioner  has  not  had  it  in  his  power  to  give  such  Notice,  neither 
was  it  his  wish  to  have  any  correspondence  with  Mr.  Galloway  in  the 
Situation  &  Circumstances  as  he  now  is,  and  not  knowing  till  very  lately 
where  to  apply,  he  now  humbly  hopes,  that  under  his  present  'Cir- 
cumstances,' the  Honoble  Council  will  permit  the  renewal  of  his  Lease 
agreeable  to  the  Covenant  in  the  Agreement  between  Mr.  Galloway 
and  him,  rhore  especially  when  it  is  considered,  that  your  Petitioner 
has  now  at  the  Furnace  above  named  three  hundred  Tons  of  Ore, 
and  a  large  Quantity  of  Wood  ready  cut  on  a  Tract  of  Wood  Land 
near  Durham  which  he  purchased,  and  which  is  of  no  other  Value 
but  for  the  Wood  on  it,  all  of  which  has  cost  your  Petitioner  a  consid- 
erable sum  of  money — And  your  Petitioner  would  further  beg  leave  to 
represent  to  the  Honble  Council,  that  last  week  a  certain  George  Wall 
calling  himsel.  an  Agent  for  the  forfeited  Estates  in  Bucks  County, 
came  to  the  Works  and  before  making  any  Application  or  giving  any 
information  to  your  Petitioner,  and  in  his  absence,  then  ordered  the 
hands  at  work  not  to  proceed  in  the  employ.  Since  when  a  certain 
James  Morgan  who  says  he  acts  under  and  by  the  Authority  of  the 
said  George  Wall,  has  removed  as  your  Petitioner  is  informed,  a  Quan- 
tity of  mettle  I.'^ng  at  the  Stamping  Mill,  and  which  your  Petitioner 
conceives  to  be  his  property  under  the  Present  Lease.  He  therefore 
humbly  prays  the  Attention  of  the  Honble  Council  to  the  above  Rep- 
resentation and  that  Direction  may  be  given  that  your  Petitioner  may 
not  be  disturbed  in  the  quiet  and  peaceable  Possession  of  the  Premises 
luring  his  present  lease  thereof. 

And  Your  Petitioner  as  in  Duty  Bound  will  ever  pray, 

Philadelphia.  July  22d.    1778."  ^^'^^   '^^^LOR. 

Upon  which  petition  the  council  made  the  following  order  the 
same  day. 

"Ordered,  That  Mr.  George  W^all  be  directed  to  pay  due  respect  to 
the  written  Agreement  between  Joseph  Galloway  Esqr  &  the  Hon'ble 
George  Taylor,  Esqr  for  the  land  and  works  known  as  Durham  Fur- 
nace &  that  he  do  not  disturb  Mr.  Taylor  in  the  peaceable  enjoyment 
and  possession  thereof  agreeable  to  the  terms  of  the  said  agreement. 
And  the  said  George  Taylor  has  represented  that  he  had  a  quantity  of 
wood  cut  &  ore  raised  at  a  considerable  expense  it  appears  to  the  Coun- 
cil to  be  just  &  equitable  that  he  should  have  a  Lease  of  the  premises 
so  long  as  the  Council  or  their  Agents  are  authorized  by  law  to  let  the 


GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE         111 

same  in  preference  to  any  other  on  such  reasonable  terms  as  may  ap- 
pear to  be  just.  The  Council  therefore  recommended  it  to  Mr.  George 
Wall  to  treat  with  said  George  Taylor,  relating  to  the  premises  & 
agree  with  him  on  equitable  &  reasonable  terms.  Such  Lease  not  to 
be  extended  beyond  the  first  day  of  April,  1780."  (Minutes  of  Council. 
—Col.  Rec.  Vol.  XI,  P.  537.) 

The  lands  and  works,  or  the  use  of  same,  "During  the  Life  of 
Joseph  Galloway  only"  were  sold  "at  public  Vendue  at  the  Court 
House  at  Newtown  on  the  twenty-third  day  of  August"  1779, 
by  George  Wall,  Agent  for  Bucks  County  Forfeited  Estates,  and 
were  bought  by  Richard  Backhouse,  and  were  put  into  operation 
the  following  spring  under  the  firm  name  of  Richard  Backhouse 
&  Company,  which  included  Col.  Richard  Backhouse,  Col.  Isaac 
Sidman,  Col.  Robert  Lettis  Hopoer,  Jr.,  and  Col.  George  Taylor. 
The  books  show  that  Col.  Taylor  was  paid  one  thousand  pounds 
for  the  ore  which  he  had  on  hand  at  the  works.  This  company 
operated  the  furnace  and  stamping  mill  until  after  Col.  Taylor's 
death,  settlement  being  made  with  his  executors  for  his  interest 
therein. 

George  Taylor  seems  to  have  retained  possession  of  the  works 
and  continued  his  residence  at  Durham  until  1779,  when  he 
moved  to  Greenwich  Township,  Sussex  (now  Warren)  County, 
New  Jersey.  At  that  place  the  Greenwich  Forge  was  located 
which  was  operated  in  conjuction  with  Durham  works,  as  Dur- 
ham pig  iron  was  refined  there.  During  April  1780,  he  removed 
to  Easton,  Pa. 

Col.  Taylor's  residence  in  Easton  was  at  the  corner  of  Fourth 
and  Ferry  streets,  in  what  is  known  as  the  Parsons-Taylor  house, 
but  he  was  never  the  owner  of  this  house.  He  died,  in  that  house, 
on  February  23,  1781,  and  was  buried  in  the  graveyard  of  the 
Lutheran  Church  directly  across  the  street  from  his  home.  His 
body  was  later  removed  to  the  Easton  Cemetery,  where  a  monu- 
ment had  been  erected  to  his  memory  in  1855  by  the  citizens  of 
Easton  and  vicinity. 

George  Taylor  was  one  of  the  brilliant  forceful  men  of  his 
time,  an  earnest  and  ardent  patriot  in  the  trying  times  of  his 
adopted  country's  needs,  a  fearless  and  able  legislator  seasoning 
every  act  of  his  long  public  career,  by  hard  robust,  conservative 
conimon  sense.     He  seems  to  have  been  held  in  high  esteem  by 


1 12         GEO.  TAYLOR,  SIGNER  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

those  with  whom  he  was  associated  in  the  pubHc  service  and  his 
advice  was  frequently  sought  as  to  public  measures. 

I  am  greatly  indebted  to  Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal  Jr.,  of  Riegels- 
ville,  for  valuable  assistance  in  compiling  the  data  contained  in 
these  pages.  Dr.  Fackenthal  has  long  taken  a  great  interest  in 
the  life  of  George  Taylor  and  has  in  his  possession  numerous 
letters  and  copies  of  letters  throwing  light  on  the  subject. 
Through  him  I  was  put  into  communication  with  Col.  W.  Gordon 
McCabe,  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  president  of  the  Historical  So- 
ciety of  Viginia,  president  of  the  Virginia  Society  Sons  of  the 
Revolution,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Portraits  of  Inde- 
pendence Hall,  etc.,  etc.  Col.  McCabe  is  a  great-great-grandson 
of  Col.  George  Taylor  and  has  a  great  number  of  autograph 
papers  and  other  documents  of  his  distinguished  ancestor.  A 
letter  of  Col.  McCabe's  which  I  have  before  me,  says  that  among 
these  papers  is  a  "letter  (never  published)  writen  by  (Col.) 
Clement  Biddle  to  George  Taylor  the  very  day  the  Declaration 
was  passed  full  of  most  interesting  items  in  reference  to  the  move- 
ment of  troops  and  the  general  military  situation.  There  are 
also  sketches  of  plats  of  land  George  Taylor  had  bought  and 
much  about  casting  shot,  etc." 

Col.  George  Taylor  left  to  survive  him,  four  grandchildren, 
the  children  of  his  only  son,  James  Taylor,  born  at  Warwick 
furnace.  East  Nantmeal  township,  Chester  county.  Pa.,  in  1746, 
died  at  Easton,  October  9,  1775.  He  studied  law  and  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  Easton  bar  in  1765,  and  practiced  law  at  Easton 
and  Allentown  until  his  death.  He  married  in  1767,  Elizabeth 
Gordon,  born  at  Philadelphia.  May  28,  1750.  Her  father, 
Lewis  Gordon,  was  for  sometime  prothonotary  of  the  county  of 
Northampton  and  treasurer  of  the  Committee  of  Safety  of  that 
county,  1775-76.  The  children  of  James  and  Elizabeth  Gordon 
Taylor  removed  to  Virginia,  after  the  death  of  their  grandfather, 
with  their  maternal  relatives.  Col.  James  Taylor,  Jr.,  married 
his  first  cousin,  Maria  Miranda  Gordon,  and  they  we,re  the  grand- 
parents of  Col.  W.  Gordon  McCabe  above  mentioned.  An  oil 
portrait  of  Col.  George  Taylor  was  taken  to  Virginia  by  his 
grandchildren,  but  it  was  left  rolled  too  long  and  the  two  sur- 
faces of  the  painting  adhered  together  causing  them  to  peel  on 
being  unrolled,  and  the  painting  being  ruined  was  burned. 


PARSONS-TAYLOR   HOUSE,    EASTON,    PA. 

The  oldest  house  in  Easton,  Pa.  Built  by  William  Parsons,  the  founder 
of  Easton,  sometime  between  1753  and  1757,  and  first  occupied  by  him  April, 
1757.  Later  the  home  of  George  Taylor,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Indeijendence,  who  leased  the  house  and  premises  from  the  Estate  of 
John  Huglies,  and  moved  there  from  Greenwich  Forge,  X.  J.,  about  April 
10.  1780,  and  wherein  he  died  February  23,  1781.  At  that  time  the  property 
included  all  of  Lot  Xo.  176  on  the  original  plan  of  Easton,  60  feet  on  Hamil- 
ton (now  Fourth)  Street,  and  220  feet  on  Ferry  Street.  The  old  engravings 
show  that  there  were  kitchen  and  other  out  buildings  attached  to  the  stone 
house,  the  size  of  which  is  27  feet  front  on  Ferry  Street,  and  17  feet  9  inches 
front  on  Fourth  Street.  That  imrt  of  the  property  on  which  the  house  stands 
21  feet  by  27  feet,  was  purchased  January  15,  1906,  by  the  George  Taylor 
Chapter,  Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution,  which  has  placed  a  bronze 
tablet  on  the  Fourth  Street  side,  with  the  following  inscription  : — 


THIS    HOUSE    BUILT    IN    1757    BY 

WILLIAM  PARSONS 

SURVEYOR    GENERAL    OF    PENNSYLVANIA 
AND    THE    HOME    OF 

GEORGE  TAYLOR 

SIGNFR   OF 

THE  DECLARATION   OF   INDEPENDENCE 

IS     MAINTAINED    BY     THE 

GEORGE  TAYLOR  CHAPTER 

DAUGHTERS     OF    THE 

AMERICAN    REVOLUTION 

AS    AN    HISTORICAL    MEMORIAL 

1906 


The  Homes  of  George  Taylor,  Signer  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

Paper   read   before   the   George   Taylor   Chapter,    Daughters   of   the   American 
Revolution,   at   Easton,   Pa.,   December  6,   1922. 

BY   B.   F.    FACKENTIIAL,   JR.,   SC.D.,   OF   RIEGELSVILLE,    PA. 

(This  paper  was  not  read  before  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society, 
but  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  is  a  complement  to  the  paper  presented 
by  Mr.  Ely,  its  publication  has  been  requested,  and  it  seems  fitting  there- 
fore that  it  should  be  printed  in  our  proceedings.) 

ON  our  great  national  holiday,  last  July  (1922)  when  Mrs. 
Fackenthal  entertained  the  members  of  this  Chapter  at 
Riegelsville.  I  was  a  privileged  guest,  and  in  an  unguarded 
moment  exhibited  to  your  Regent  my  file  of  George  Taylor  papers, 
contained  in  a  special  drawer  set  aside  for  that  purpose.  Seeing 
so  many  papers  may  have  led  her  to  suppose  that  it  was  new  ma- 
terial, whereas  there  is  but  little  to  tell  about  this  man,  whose 
memory  your  society  has  honored,  that  is  not  already  known  to 
most  of  you.  There  has  however  been  very  little  written  about 
his  homes  which  is  made  the  special  subject  of  this  paper. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  historians  have  fallen  into  errors  in  their 
accounts  of  this  interesting  man.  Corrections  do  not  always  cor- 
rect, or  reach  the  same  readers.  This  is  true  not  only  of  the  life 
and  services  of  George  Taylor,  but  of  many  items  of  other  his- 
tory as  well. 

The  story  that  George  Taylor  was  a  redemptioner ;  that  he 
came  to  America  "with  his  parents"  from  Ireland  in  1736,  and  first 
settled  at  Durham  Furnace,  where  he  was  a  furnace  filler ;  that  he 
was  the  son  of  Nathaniel  Taylor  of  the  Irish  settlement  in  North- 
amption  County;  that  he  came  to  America  with  his  father  and  a 
younger  brother;  and  such  like  statements,  are  made  by  all  his 
biographers.  Just  where  these  false  and  misleading  statements 
originated  have  not  been  determined.  They  are  doubtless  all  based 
on  Sanderson's  Lives  of  the  Signers,  first  published  in  1823-27, 
and  revised  by  Henry  D.  Gilpin,  Esq.,  (b.  1801,  d.  1859),  a  promi- 
nent Philadelphia  lawyer,  who  in  1840,  was  Attorney  General  of 
the  United  States.  The  same  erroneous  accounts  are  contained  in 
the  Lives  of  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  by 


114  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

Rev.  Charles  H.  Goodrich,  New  York,  1829;  A  Compendious 
History  of  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  1831, 
by  Dr.  Nathaniel  Dwight ;  Biographies  of  the  Signers  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  by  L.  Carrel  Judson,  Philadelphia,  1839; 
Lives  of  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  by  Ben- 
son J.  Lossing,  1848;  Henry's  History  of  the  Lehigh  Valley, 
Easton,  1860;  and  in  Condit's  History  of  Easton,  1885.  County 
and  State  histories,  biographical  dictionaries  and  encyclopaedias 
repeat  the  same  story,  and  local  historians  naturally  follow  along 
the  same  lines,  and  all  inter  alia,  say  that  he  was  born  in  Ireland. 

Newly  discovered  evidence,  however,  points  to  England  as  his 
birthplace,  and  the  Taylor  family  tradition  that  he  came  from 
Ireland,  may  be  wrong.  This  is  confirmed  by  his  bookplate, 
which  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  his  ancestry.  It  contains  the 
coat  of  arms  of  the  Taylors  of  Durant,  the  ancient  Taylor  family 
of  Derbyshire,  England.  One  of  his  bookplates  has  been  pre- 
sented to  me  by  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  of  Worcester, 
Mass.,  from  which  the  engraving  shown  herewith  has  been  made. 
As  can  be  seen  it  contains  his  autograph  signature,  and  the  date 
1778.  The  American  Antiquarian  Society  has  another  copy  of 
this  bookplate,  with  his  signature  bearing  date  1776.  A  third 
bookplate  (of  which  a  photostat  has  been  sent  me),  bearing  date 
1776,  is  in  the  unique  collections  of  signers  autographs  owned 
by  Mr.  Kenyon  V.  Painter  of  Cleveland,  Ohio.  In  the  appraise- 
ment of  Geo.  Taylor's  estate  there  were  79  books,  all  of  which 
doubtless  contained  his  bookplate.  It  is  not  likely  that  George 
Taylor  would  have  used  this  bookplate  if  not  entitled  to  do  so, 
and  further  suggests  that  he  may  have  been  in  touch  with  the 
English  family  of  Taylors  and  most  likely  a  kinsman. 

I  remember  in  1898  sending  a  signed  communication  to  an 
Easton  newspaper,  in  which  I  took  exception  to  certain  state- 
ments made  by  a  prominent  historian  of  Easton  in  his  lecture  on 
the  life  of  George  Taylor.  He  had  repeated  the  erroneous  state- 
ments to  which  I  have  referred,  and  moreover  placed  special 
emphasis  on  a  statement  that  George  Taylor  was  guarding  the 
Atlantic  coast  during  the  Revolutionary  War.  He  read  copies  of 
several  letters  signed  by  a  George  Taylor,  written  from  Free- 
hold and  Shrewsbury  in  New  Jersey,  to  justify  himself. 
It  was  later  shown  that  those  letters  had  not  been  written  by  our 


^^^^//^ 


GEORGE  TAYLOR'S  BOOKPLATE. 

Coat  of  Arms  of  the  ancient  Taylor  family  of 
Uurant  Hall,  Derbyshire,  England.  (The  heiress 
married  Sir  Charles  Sliyrmsher,  Knight  Templar 
Charles  2nd.)  ,        ,    ^ 

Arms:  Ermine  on  a  chevron  gules  between 
three   anchors,   as   many   escallops   argent. 

Crest :  A  Stork  resting  the  dexter  foot  on 
an    anchor    proper. 


HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR  115 

George  Taylor,  but  by  another  of  that  name.  This  is  more 
clearly  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Simon  Gratz,  in  his  delightful  Book 
about  Autographs.^  Mr.  Gratz  shows  that  one  of  the  letters,  to 
which  I  have  referred,  published  in  the  Pennsylvania  Archives- 
and  the  other  one  formerly  in  possession  of  Mr.  L.  C.  Cist  of  St, 
Louis,  are  not  by  our  George  Taylor.  In  like  manner  a  docu- 
ment in  the  manuscript  department  of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical 
Society  at  Philadelphia,  dated  February  3,  1763,  and  a  letter  in 
the  Congressional  Library  at  Washington,  are  not  genuine.  The 
one  at  Washington  bears  date  1793,  whereas  our  George  Taylor 
passed  away  in  1781.  I  have  examined  many  autograph  letters 
and  documents  containing  the  signature  of  George  Taylor,  includ- 
ing copies  of  those  contained  in  the  twenty-two  complete  sets  of 
autographs  of  the  signers,  as  detailed  by  Mr.  Charles  F.  Jenkins 
in  his  splendid  article  published  in  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine  of 
History,  Vol.  49,  p.  231,  and  have  never  seen  a  signature  of  George 
Taylor  where  he  writes  his  name  out  in  full,  but  always  Geo. 
Taylor.-^  y^  . 


We  have  to  thank  the  late  Gov.  Samuel  W.  Pennypacker  for 
aiding  us  in  the  most  incidental  way,  in  obtaining  a  correct  his- 
tory of  George  Taylor  during  the  early  years  of  his  life  in 
America.  It  is  said  of  Mr.  Pennypacker  that  he  had  made  an 
arrangement  with  the  employees  of  a  certain  papermill,  using  old 
paper,  by  which  they  laid  aside  for  his  inspection  all  old  books 
and  documents  published  prior  to  a  certain  date,  1820  I  think,  and 
in  that  way  he  secured  many  books  and  papers  that  were  scarce 
and  of  historic  value.  On  one  occasion,  not  many  years  prior  to 
his  death,  he  stopped  a  cart  passing  through  the  streets  of  Potts- 
town,  Pa.,  loaded  with  old  junk,  which  on  examination  was  found 
to  contain  among  other  old  paper,  the  Potts  books  and  papers  on 
their  way  to  the  scrap  heap.  He  purchased  the  load  and  thus 
secured  110  ledgers  and  other  account  books  of  early  forges  and 

1  A  Book  About  Autographs  by  Mr.  Simon  Gratz,  p.  249  ;  Campbell,  Phila- 
delphia, 1920. 

2  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Fir.st  .Series.  Vol.  V,  p.  49.  The  original  of  this 
letter  is  now  in  possession  of  Haverford  College. 

2a  Under  date  of  July  4,  1926,  Mr.  .Jenkins  revised  his  list  and  now  reports 
having  located  27  complete  sets  of  signer's  autographs. 


116  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

blast  furnaces,  including  Coventry,  Pine,  Mount  Pleasant,  Pool, 
Valley  and  Pottsgrove  forges  and  Colebrookdale,  Christine,  Red- 
ding and  Warwick  blast  furnaces.  Colebrookdale  was  the  very 
first  blast  furnace  in  Pennsylvania,  built  in  1720,  which  was 
seven  years  before  Durham  blast  furnace  was  built.  The  Govern- 
or had  these  books  bound,  indexed  and  annotated.  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  looking  through  them  in  his  library  at  Schwenksville. 
At  the  sale  of  his  library,  by  his  executors,  these  old  ledgers  were 
bought  by  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society,  where  they  may 
be  consulted  by  any  one  interested. 

When  Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer  was  preparing  his  book  on  fire- 
backs  and  stoveplates  for  publication,  called  The  Bible  in  Iron, 
published  in  1914,  Mr.  Warren  S.  Ely  went  over  to  Schwenks- 
ville to  search  through  these  Potts  books  for  stoveplate-informa- 
tion,  as  firebacks  and  stoveplates  were  cast  at  Colebrookdale, 
Christine ;  Redding  and  Warwick  furnaces  at  an  early  day.  Mr. 
Ely  spent  some  days  in  his  researches  and  was  surprised  to  find 
that  George  Taylor  had  for  many  years  been  connected  with 
Coventry  Forge  and  Warwick  Furnace,  and  that  it  was  there,  in 
Chester  County,  on  French  Creek,  and  not  at  Durham  Furnace 
that  he  established  himself  in  1736,  on  his  arrival  in  America. 
Mr.  Ely  has  given  us  the  benefit  of  this  new  George  Taylor  in- 
formation in  his  splendid  paper  read  before  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society  in  1918.  (See  ante,  page  101.)  The  Potts 
books  show  that  George  Taylor  began  his  metallurgical  career  a.'? 
bookkeeper  at  those  works ;  that  he  was  promoted  to  the  position 
of  manager,  and  on  the  death  of  Samuel  Savage,  Jr.,  early  in 
1742,  married,  before  the  close  of  the  same  year,  his  widow, 
whose  maiden  name  was  Ann  Taylor,  daughter  of  Isaac  Taylor, 
Deputy  Surveyor  General  of  Chester  County.  He  then  assumed 
control  of  his  wife's  business  and  settled  the  estate  of  Mr.  Savage. 

The  Historical  Society  at  Doylestown  has  lately  come  into 
possession  of  two  documents  in  the  handwriting  of  George  Tay- 
lor, both  bearing  his  signature.  One  dated  1739,  is  an  invoice 
to  Hon.  Thomas  Penn  for  pig  iron  shipped,  presumably  from 
Warwick  Furnace,  to  Clement  Plumstead,  the  other  dated  1741, 
is  an  agreement  with  an  inventory  of  teams,  wagons  and  other 
personal  property  at  Warwick  Furnace,  when  a  one-half  interest 
thereof  w^as  about  to  be  leased  to  John  Potts.     I  take  pleasure  in 


ja,>f  JO    o 


f^^f'  tf  /;/^A//r/^'^^> 


^       ^,^^  /r.         ^.,,     .-/. 


^c:^ 


INVOICE   FOR   PIG   IROX.   XOVEME5ER   6-22.    1739. 
In    the    handwriting-    of    George    Taylor,    with    his    .signature    as    clerk    for 
Ann    Nutt    &    Co..    at    Warwicl:    Furnace.      The    earliest    known    signature    of 
George  Tavlor.     Original  in  Library  of  Bucks  County  Historical  Society. 


nOxMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR  117 

presenting  this  Chapter  with  photostats  of  these  two  documents.-' 
In  1752,  when  Samuel  Savage,  the  third  (son  of  Samuel  Sav- 
age, Jr.,  deceased),  came  of  age  no  time  was  lost  in  serving  writ- 
ten notice  on  George  Taylor,  asking  him  to  resign  the  manage- 
ment of  Coventry  Forge.  About  that  time  Mrs.  Taylor's  tenure 
of,  and  interest  in  the  Warwick  Furnace  terminated,  although  she 
held  a  life  interest  in  the  two  farms.  The  Taylors  continued  to 
reside  in  Chester  County  until  1754  or  1755,  when  George  Taylor 
and  Samuel  Flower  formed  a  co-partnership  and  leased  the  Dur- 
ham Iron  Works  in  Durham  Township,  Bucks  County,  Pa.,  for 
a  period  of  five  years,  with  the  privilege  of  five  additional  years. 
The  George  Taylors  then  moved  to  Durham.  During  this  lease- 
hold they  made  "cannon  shot"  at  Durham,  presumably  for  the 
Provincial  Government  during  the  French  and  Indian  War.^ 
There  is  much  documentary  evidence  to  show  Taylor's  residence 
in  Durham,  such  as  his  appointment  on  a  jury  to  review  a  road, 
his  commission  as  a  justice  of  the  peace  in  1757  and  again  in 
1761  and  1763,  as  well  as  his  letters  written  from  there.  His 
home  w^as  in  the  so-called  "Mansion  House,"  on  the  Durham 
Road  about  one-fourth  mile  west  of  the  site  of  the  1727  blast 
furnace.  It  is  said  that  the  original  house  was  destroyed  by  fire, 
and  the  new  stone  house,  still  standing,  was  built  on  the  old  foun- 
dations. The  Galloway  heirs  later  sold  the  farm  on  which  the 
house  was  located  to  the  Longs.  After  the  death  of  Richard 
Backhouse  in  1795,  his  son  James  converted  this  Mansion  House 
into  a  hotel,  for  which  he  was  first  granted  a  license  in  1798.  It 
had  always  been  the  polling  place  for  Durham  Township,  but 
when  abandoned  as  a  public  house  in  1871,  a  special  election  was 
held  on  June  21st  of  that  year,  wdien  it  was  decided  to  remove  the 
polling  place  to  the  village  of  Monroe.  It  was  in  that  old  house,  in 
Durham  Township,  during  his  second  leasehold  of  Durham  fur- 
nace, that  George  Taylor  made  his  home  for  a  second  time,  when 
he  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  is  likely  that  a 
monument  will  be  erected  to  mark  the  site,  and  also  one  to  mark 
the  site  of  the  old  Durham  blast  furnace  built  in  1727,  now  the 
property  of  Harvey  F.  Riegel.  An  old  stone  arch  of  this  furnace 
can  still  be  seen  surrounded  by  a  growth  of  trees.     Occasionally 

3  An  etching-  of  the  document  dated  1739,  is  shown  herewith.  It  contains 
the  earnest  known  signature  of  Geo.  Taylor,  and  is  signed  by  him  as  clerk 
for  Anna  Nutt  &  Co. 

4  See  Bucks  County  Court  Records,  September  Term,  1765. 


118  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

cannon  balls  and  shot  are  found  on  property  adjacent  to  the  old 
furnace-site.  There  are  quite  a  number  of  cannon  balls  and  shot 
now  in  the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society, 
which  were  cast  at  Durham. 

During  the  latter  part  of  1763,  at  the  expiration  of  his  ten  years 
lease  of  Durham  Iron  Works,  George  Taylor,  with  his  family, 
moved  to  Easton  doubtless  making  his  home  in  the  stone  house 
at  the  northeast  corner  of  Northampton  and  Fermer  (now  Sec- 
ond) Streets,  which  he  bought  at  sheriff's  sale  December  23,  1761, 
as  the  property  of  Jacob  Bachman.^  This  was  Lot  No.  24,  on  the 
original  plan  of  Easton.  size  60  feet  on  Northampton  and  220 
feet  on  Second  Streets.  The  stone  house  now  standing  on  that 
comer  is  doubtless  the  same  house  that  was  occupied  by  George 
Taylor.  The  deed  is  not  recorded,  nor  was  it  acknowledged  in  the 
prothonotary's  office.  The  price  paid.  £117,  15s,  lOd.,  indicates  that 
the  property  was  improved  when  he  bought  it.  There  is  no  ex- 
planation as  to  the  use  he  made  of  that  property  from  the  time 
he  bought  it  in  1761  until  he  moved  into  it  in  1763.  While  living 
there  he  also  obtained  possession  of  Lot  No.  7Z  on  the  opposite 
or  northwest  corner  of  the  same  streets,  size  55  feet  by  220  feet, 
whereon  he  built  a  stone  stable.  It  appears  that  this  lot  had  not 
been  patented,  and  Taylor  occupied  it  by  permission  of  the  Penns. 
It  was  on  that  corner,  where  in  after  years,  the  home  of  Alexander 
Wilson  was  located.  On  August  24,  1779,  George  Taylor  sold 
Lot  No.  24  to  Theophilus  Shannon  for  the  sum  of  £1,300  Penn- 
sylvania money  (currency  was  then  depreciated),  and  at  the  same 
time  he  sold  his  interest  in  Lot  No.  TZ,  with  stone  stable  to  the 
same  party  for  the  sum  of  £100  Pennsylvania  money.  In  the 
deeds  transferring  these  properties  he  describes  himself  as  living 
in  Greenwich  Township,  Sussex  (now  Warren)  County,  New 
Jersey.     (Deed  Book  D,  Vol.  I.  pp.  179  and  180.) 

After  moving  to  Easton  he  at  once  took  an  active  part  in 
public  affairs,  showing  that  he  must  have  been  a  prominent  and 
influential  citizen.  He  took  a  leading  part  in  building  the  new 
courthouse,  all  moneys  for  which,  it  is  said,  passed  through  his 
hands.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Assembly  from  1764 
to  1769  inclusive.     He  was  commissioned  a  Justice  of  the  Peace 

5  Lot  No.  24  was  patented  to  Jacob  Bachman  March  14,  1754,  Patent  book 
A,  Vol.  18,  p.  236.  Bachman  mortgaged  it  to  John  Potts  November  27,  1754. 
The  mortgage  was  foreclosed  and  the  property  bought  by  Geo.  Taylor. 


GEORGE  TAYLOR  HOUSE  AT  LOWER  CATASAUQUA,   LEHIGH  COUNTY,   PA. 
(Prior  to  1812,  Allen  Township,  Northampton  County.) 

On  March  10,  1767,  George  Tavlor  purchased  from  Thomas  Armstrong,  331  acres  of 
land  on  the  Lehigh  River  in  Allen  Township,  part  of  a  larger  tract  known  a^  the  Manor 
of  Chawton,"  on  which  this  substantial  stone  house  had  been  built.  Mrs  Taylor  passed 
awav  in  this  house  in  1768.  On  March  27,  1776.  George  Taylor  conveyed  the  Property  to 
John  Benezet  of  Philadelphia,  but  prior  to  that  time  he  moved  to  Durham  m  Bucks  County, 
probably  in  1774  when  for  a  second  time  he  leased  the  Durham  Iron  Works,  where  he  was 
living  oil  August  2,  1776,  when  he  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 


HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR  119 

for  Northampton  County  in  1764  and  regularly  thereafter  until 
1772. 

On  March  10,  1767,  he  bought  a  tract  of  331  acres  of  land, 
fronting  on  the  Lehigh  River,  in  Allen  Township,  at  what  is  now 
Lower  Catasauqua, '  Lehigh  County,  being  part  of  a  larger 
tract  known  as  the  "Manor  of  Chawton."  (Deed  book  B,  Vol.  I, 
p.  102,  etc.)  On  this  property  there  had  been  built  a  substantial 
stone  house  with  walls  two  feet  thick  which  is  still  standing  in 
a  fairly  good  state  of  preservation.  He  sold  this  x\llen  Township 
property  to  John  Benezet,  the  deed  bears  date  March  27,  1776. 
It  appears,  however,  that  he  moved  to  Durham  prior  to  that  time, 
probably  in  1774,  when  he  leased  the  Durham  property  from 
Joseph  Galloway.  During  the  year  1772  some  of  his  letters  were 
written  from  Northampton  (the  name  of  which  was  changed  to 
Allentown  on  April  16,  1838).  This  suggests  that  he  may,  at 
that  time,  have  been  living  with  his  son  James,  who  moved  there 
early  in  1772.  An  autograph  letter,  signed  by  him,  dated  De- 
cember 30,  1775,  now  in  possession  of  Haverford  College,  fixes 
his  residence  in  Durham  at  that  time.  Just  what  his  object  was 
in  moving  to  Allen  Township  does  not  appear,  there  were  doubt- 
less no  iron  works  in  that  neighborhood,  and  therefore  it  is  likely 
that  he  was  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits,  and  besides  he  had 
his  public  business  to  attend  to.  A  photograph  of  his  Catasauqua 
home,  which  I  presented  to  this  chapter  several  years  ago,  hangs 
on  yonder  wall,  and  an  etching  of  it  is  shown  herewith.  In  1912, 
when  I  visited  that  house,  there  were  a  number  of  firebacks 
in  the  fireplaces.  One  of  them  had  been  presented  to  the 
Lehigh  County  Historical  Society,  which  suggests  that  one  might 
be  secured  for  this  room.  These  plates  contain  no  embellish- 
ments other  than  the  initials  and  date  "G.  T.  1768."  I  had  one 
of  them  drilled  for  chemical  analysis  and  found  the  phosphorus 
and  manganese  to  be  about  five  times  too  high  for  it  to  have  been 
made  from  Durham  ores,  and  concluded  that  they  were  prob- 
ably cast  at  some  other  blast  furnace. ''' 

On  September  17,  1765,  George  Taylor  bought  of  Peter  Kich- 
line.  Sheriff,  as  the  property  of  Nicholas  Scull,  Easton  Lot  No.  167, 
55  feet  front  on  Northampton  street,  on  which  Scull  had  built  a 
stone  house.     (Deed  book  B,  Vol  I,  p.  42.)     That  property  is  now 

6  Analysis  of  flreback :  Silicon  1.00,  phosphorus  .54,  manganese  .56,  sul- 
phur .067,  copper  none. 


120  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

owned  by  the  estates  of  Mary  Moyer,  C.  L.  Magee  and  Jacob 
Hay,  and  is  occupied  by  the  United  Retail  Chemists  and  the  F. 
&  W.  Grand  5,  10,  and  25  Cent  Store.  George  Taylor  bought 
that  house  for  his  son  James  to  whom  he  and  his  wife.  Ann  Tay- 
lor, conveyed  it  October  25,  1765,  for  the"  consideration  of  5 
shillings  and  "their  natural  love  and  affection."  (Deed  book  B. 
Vol.  I,  p.  51,  and  another  corrected  deed  for  same  property  re- 
corded Deed  book  C,  Vol.  I,  p.  17.) 

Later  James  Taylor  moved  to  Allentown,  and  while  living 
there  he  and  his  wife  Elizabeth  conveyed  his  Easton  property, 
December  30,  1771,  to  Myer  Hart  of  Easton.  (Deed  book  C. 
Vol.  I.  p.  18.)  On  January  2,  1772,  James  Taylor  bought  from 
Myer  Hart,  lot  No.  342  of  the  plan  of  Allentown.  (Deed  book 
C.  Vol.  I,  p.  57.)     They  may  possibly  have  exchanged  properties. 

After  the  death  of  James  Taylor  in  1775,  his  Allentown  prop- 
erty was  sold  by  the  sheriff,  on  June  19,  1776,  and  bought  by 
'Phillip  Ritter.  (Deed  book  C,  Vol.  I,  p.  387.)  It  appears  that 
George  Taylor  was  frequently  called  upon,  to  give  financial  aid 
to  his  son  James. 

On  May  21,  1763,  George  Taylor  bought  certain  rights  of 
Philip  Rustein,  in  Lot  No.  502  on  James  Street  in  Allentown. 
(Deed  book  A,  Vol.  I,  p.  295)  on  which  a  house  had  been  built. 
I  can  find  no  record  to  show  how  Taylor  disposed  of  that  property. 

Ann,  wife  of  George  Taylor,  died  in  1768,  shortly  after  they 
moved  into  their  Catasauqua  house.  It  is  not  known  w^here  her 
body  lies  buried,  but  there  is  evidence  to  show  that  George  Tay- 
lor, while  living  in  Durham,  was  connected  with  the  Red  Hill 
Presbyterian  Church.  This  is  further  shown  by  the  fact  that  on 
March  8,  1765,  a  lot  of  one  acre  of  land  (  size  10  perches  by  16 
perches)  at  Gallows  Hill,  on  the  Durham  Road  in  Bucks  County, 
was  deeded  to  Rev.  Richard  Treat  and  George  Taylor,  in  trust 
for  that  congregation,  for  a  burying  ground,  and  Mrs.  Taylor 
may  have  been  buried  there.  (See  Bucks  County  Deed  book, 
Vol.  XX,  p.  235.)  Some  historians  theorize  that  she  was  buried 
at  Easton.  Some  graves  found  near  the  Taylor  house  at  Catasau- 
qua make  it  not  unlikely  that  she  was  buried  there.  George  and 
Ann  Taylor  had  two  children,  Ann,  called  Nancy,  who  died  in 
childhood,  and  James,  who  was  born  at  Warwick  Furnace  in 
1746.    James  married  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Lewis  Gordon,  who 


t^ jLCt-cM"/^'-'^  /:t^>xi/ /-Ca^r-  /y^<:e  <<?/i'?«<'<i^,<-v    tn  .    C  *  /^>>»».«^-»!.      ^ 


,^...Ai  A  SS  /.  ..^-  -^-^  ^-^-'  y^5:  ^—  z' 


7' 


OATH    OF   ALLEGIANCE    TO    THE    COMMONWEALTH    OF    PENNSYLVANLV. 
As  taken  by  George  Taylor,  February  3,  1778. 
The  "Test  Oath,"  required  by  an  Act  of  Congress  passed  in  1777. 


HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR  121 

was  the  first  resident  lawyer  to  practice  at  Easton.  Col.  McCabe 
of  Richmond,  Va.,  writes  that  James  and  Elizabeth  were  mere 
children  when  they  married.  Elizabeth  was  born  August  23, 
1750,  and  was  therefore  but  25  years  old  when  James  died  Octo- 
ber 9,  1775,  at  the  age  of  29  years.  After  his  death  their  five 
small  children,  George,  Ann,  Mary,  Thomas  and  James,  Jr.,  were 
cared  for  by  their  grandfather,  George  Taylor.  Elizabeth,  widow 
of  James,  on  July  18,  1780,  deeded  to  George  Taylor,  for  the  care 
and  education  of  her  children,  the  one-half  of  her  interest  in  the 
real  estate  which  she  inherited  under  the  will  of  her  father, 
Lewis  Gordon,  which  included  Easton  Lot  No.  171,  (size  56 
feet  by  220  feet)  on  which  Abie's  Opera  House  now  stands. 
(Deed  book  C.  Vol.  I.  p.  545.)"''  Of  the  five  children  of  James 
and  Elizabeth.  Ann  married  Samuel  Swann  and  moved  to  Pow- 
hatton,  Virginia,  taking  with  her,  and  making  a  home  for  her  two 
brothers,  George  (who  did  not  marry),  and  James,  Jr.;  Mary 
died  young;  Thomas  was  drowned  in  the  Lehigh  River;  James, 
Jr.,  married  his  first  cousin,  Anna  Maria  Miranda  Gordon,  at 
Alexandria,  Va.,  Dec.  19,  1786.  He  died  at  Richmond,  Va.,  in 
1837.  They  were  the  parents  of  four  children,  one  of  whom. 
Sophia  Gordon  Taylor,  married,  first,  to  John  Rutledge  Smith. 
and  second,  to  the  Rev.  John  Collins  McCabe,  D.D..  of  the  Episco- 
pal Church,  who  were  the  parents  of  Col.  W.  Gordon  McCabe, 
Litt.D.,  LL.D.,  and  who  was  therefore  a  great-great-grandson  of 
George  Taylor.  Col.  McCabe  says  that  George  Taylor  has  many 
legitimate  descendants  living  in  Virginia. 

I  have  corresponded  with  Col.  McCabe  for  many  years  and 
had  the  pleasure  of  visiting  him  in  his  home  at  Richmond,  and 
from  him  obtained  much  history  of  his  distinguished  ancestor. 
As  can  be  seen  by  his  will,  George  Taylor  left  a  family  of  five 
natural  children,  whose  mother  was  his  housekeeper,  Naomi 
Smith.  Some  of  their  descendants  added  the  family  name  of 
Savage,  as  a  middle  name,  with  the  intention  of  representing  that 
they  were  legitimate  descendants  of  George  Taylor,  much  to  the 
annoyance  of  Col.  McCabe  and  other  legitimate  descendants. 

George  Taylor  obtained  his  military  title  of  Colonel  on  July  21. 
1775,  when  at  a  meeting  held  at  Bogart's  tavern  in  Bucks  County, 

7  American  Archives,  Vol.  II,  p.  1787  ;  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Fifth  Series, 
Vol,  VIII,  p.  14. 

oa  This  deed  recites  that  Elizabeth  is  about  to  depart  from  her  usual  place 
of  abode. 


122  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

he  was  elected  Colonel  of  the  Third  Battalion  of  Militia.'  Pre- 
vious to  that  time  he  was  enrolled  as  an  "Associator."  During 
the  year  1777.  an  act  was  passed  called  the  "Test  Act,"  under 
which  it  was  required  that  every  man  should  take  an  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  Such  as  signed 
the  test  oath  were  called  "Associators,"  and  such  as  did  not  sign 
were  called  "Non-Associators."  Col.  George  Taylor  took  this 
test  oath  on  February  3.  1778,  the  original  document  has  been  pre- 
served, and  a  photostatic  copy  sent  to  me  by  Hon.  James  B.  Laux. 
of  New  York,  in  order  that  I  might  have  the  etching  made  of  it 
which  accompanies  this  paper.  There  is  no  record  to  show  that 
Col.  Taylor  was  ever  engaged  in  active  military  service,  he  was  too 
much  occupied  making  ammunition  at  Durham,  and  in  other  pur- 
suits in  the  interest  of  our  new  government. 

GEORGE  TAYLOR  LEASES  DURHAM   IRON   WORKS  FOR  FIVE  YEARS, 

FROM   NOVEMBER   1 773,  WITH  THE  PRIVILEGE  OF  AN 

ADDITIONAL  FIVE  YEARS. 

Although  there  is  evidence  to  show  an  earlier  iron  operation  at 
Durham,  the  organized  company  which  built  the  blast  furnace  of 
1727,  dates  from  1726.  The  company  was  composed  of  twelve 
prominent  gentlemen,  all  from  Philadelphia,  except  Jeremiah 
Langhorne,  who  was  from  Trevose  in  Bucks  County. '^.  When 
the  property  was  partitioned  among  the  owners,  deed  dated  De- 
cember 24,  1773,  (all  the  original  owners  having  passed  away),  it 
included  all  of  Durham  Township  (6,410  acres  123  perches)  644 
acres  in  Springfield  Township.  30  acres  in  Lower  Saucon  Town- 
ship and  1,456  acres  29  perches  in  Williams  Township,  the  last  two 
townships  in  Northampton  County.  8,511  acres  100  perches  in  all. 

In  the  partition  proceedings,  that  part  of  the  property  contain- 
ing the  mines,  quarries,  forges  and  blast  furnace  was  allotted  to 
Joseph  Galloway  and  his  wife  Grace,  nee  Growden.  It  appears 
however,  by  the  petition  addressed  by  George  Taylor  to  the  Su- 
preme Executive  Council  on  July  22,  1778,  that  he  had  leased  the 
plant  from  Joseph  Galloway  prior  to  the  deed  of  partition,  viz, 
during  November  1773  for  five  years,  with  the  privilege  of  "hav- 
ing  it   renewed   upon    the    same   terms,    for    five    years    more." 

8  The  twelve  gentlemen  forming  the  original  Durham  Iron  Company  were 
Jeremiah  Langhorne,  Anthony  Morris,  James  Logan,  Charles  Read,  Robert 
Ellis,  George  Fitzwater,  Clement  Plumsted,  William  Allen,  Andrew  Bradford, 
John  Hopkins,  Thomas  Lindley  and  Joseph  Turner. 


HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR  123 

I  need  not  speak  of  the  loyal  services  of  this  patriot 
during  the  Revolutionary  struggle,  that  are  so  well  known  to  all  of 
you,  but  you  may  not  know  that  George  Taylor  was  the  very 
first  in  Pennsylvania  to  make  shot  and  shells  for  the  Continental 
Army.  This  is  clearly  shown  by  his  correspondence  and  by  docu- 
ments published  in  the  Colonial  Records.^  The  first  shipment  of 
which  we  have  a  record,  was  made  August  25,  1775,  and  con- 
sisted of  round  shot,  viz:  250  of  18  lbs.,  4  of  25  lbs.  and  4  of 
32  lbs.  There  is  much  evidence  to  show  that  George  Taylor  was 
living  at  Durham,  and  engaged  in  making  shot  and  shell  for  the 
Continental  Army  from  1775  to  1778  inclusive. 

The  following  letter,  in  possession  of  Col.  McCabe's  family, 
addressed  to  Col.  George  Taylor  at  Durham  by  Clement  Biddle, 
is  not  only  interesting  from  an  historical  standpoint,  but  also 
fixes  the  residence  of  George  Taylor  at  Durham  on  July  4,  1776, 
where  his  home  was  on  August  2,  1776,  when  he  signed  the 
Declaration  of  Independence : 

Philadelphia,  July  4.  1776. 
Dear  Sire: 

I  have  yours  of  3d  inst.,  and  am  glad  of  your  forwardness  with  the 
Shott — pray  send  all  of  them  down  as  soon  as  possible — we  don't  know 
what  hour  we  may  want  them — the  things  ordered  shall  be  prepared 
also  provided  I  can  get  the  Salt. 

Genl.  Howe's  army  are  with  the  fleet  of  130  sail  at  Sandy  Hook 
we  hourly  expect  to  hear  of  some  important  stroke  there — we  have 
about  10,000  Effective  men  at  N.  York — 6,000  militia  coming  from  Conn- 
ecticut— 3  to  4,000  marched  from  Jersey  toward  Amboy — Col.  Broad- 
head's  Rifle  men  and  others  of  our  troops  marching  to  the  Jerseys 
to  join  them — a  few  tories  are  in  arms  in   Monmouth   County — Jersey. 

At  Charleston,  So.  Carolina,  Genl.  Clinton  had  got  one  man  of  war 
and  30  transports  over  the  bar  but  lost  a  50  gun  ship  in  attempting  to 
get  over.  Genl.  Lee  had  arrived  with  1,300  Troops  from  No.  Carolina 
to  join  their  Provincial  Troops  and  it  said  that  Charles  Town  is  well 
fortified.  It  thickens  around  us  and  the  day  is  big  with  the  fate  of 
America  but  I  trust  that  we  shall  be  able  by  union  and  perseverence  to 
establish  that  freedom  and  Independence  which  Congress  have  just 
declared  nem  con. 

I   am   Dr   Sir  Yr   Hble   Servt 

CLEMENT  BIDDLE. 

The  three  pound  shot  are  so  much  wanted  that  I  am  directed  to  de- 
sire you  immediately  to  send  them  down  by  all  means. 
Addressed  to 

Col.  George  Taylor, 
Durham. 

9  Colonial  Records,  First  Series,  Vol.  X,  pp.  297-298-315-331-339-354-365- 
373-381-382-598-690. 


124  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

During  George  Taylor's  leasehold  of  Durham  it  appears  that  a 
great  part  of  his  pig  iron  was  refined  at  the  Greenwich  and  Chel- 
sea Forges  in  Greenwich  Township,  Sussex  (now  Warren)  County, 
New  Jersey,  and  that  his  friend,  Richard  Backhouse,  was  asso- 
ciated with  him,  at  least  for  part  of  the  time,  in  these  refining 
operations.  In  two  deeds  recorded  here  at  Easton,  dated  August 
24,  1779,  George  Taylor  is  described  as  living  in  Greenwich 
Township,  New  Jersey,  doubtless  at  Greenwich  Forge,  on  Mus- 
contecong  Creek,  about  five  miles  from  the  site  of  the  old  Dur- 
ham Furnace. ^^  I  am  sure  the  New  Jersey  members  of  this  Chap- 
ter are  pleased  to  know  that  he  once  lived  within  the  borders  of 
their  state. 

GEORGE   TAYLOR    PURCHASES    ONE-FOURTH    INTEREST    IN 
DURHAM  IRON  WORKS. 

When  Joseph  Galloway  allied  himself  to  the  British  cause,  he 
was  in  1778,  attainted  of  treason.  His  large  holdings  of  land  in 
Pennsylvania,  which  in  addition  to  Durham,  Trevose,  Belmont 
and  elsewhere,  including  also  the  now  celebrated  Hog  Island,  were 
seized  and  sold  by  the  Commissioner  of  Forfeited  Estates.  An  at- 
tempt was  then  made  to  dispossess  George  Taylor  of  Durham, 
but  the  Supreme  Executive  Council  decided  that  he  might  remain 
in  possession  until  the  first  period  of  his  lease  had  expired. 
George  Taylor  was  himself  a  member  of  the  very  first  Supreme 
Executive  Council,  which  met  daily  in  Philadelphia.^^  He  did 
not  miss  a  single  meeting  from  the  date  of  its  organization, 
March  4,  1777,  until  prevented  from  attending  by  sickness. 

The  following  is  copy  of  a  letter  in  the  archives  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Historical  Society  at  Philadelphia : 

Durham,   May  24,   1777. 
Sir — 

I  have  been  confined  to  my  chamber  for  four  weeks  past  by  a  violent 
fever.  I  am  just  now  beginning  to  walk  about.  You  will  please  let 
his  Excellency  the  President  know  that  as  soon  as  my  health  will  per- 
mit I  will  attend  the  Council. 

I  am  with  great  Respect  &c. 
To  Timothy  Matlack,  Esqr.  Sir,  Your  Most  Humbl'  Servt. 

Geo.  Taylor. 

The  Journal  of  the  Moravian  Society  at  Bethlehem,  under  date 

10   Northampton  County,  Deed  Book  D,  Vol.   I,  pp.  179  and  180. 

II  Colonial  Records,  First  Series,  Vol.  XI,  p.  173. 


HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR  125 

of  July  10-11,  1776,  states  that  there  were  elected  five  Germans 
and  three  Irish  farmers  as  delegates;  these  delegates  appointed 
the  member  of  Congress,  who  in  this  instance  was  George  Taylor. 
In  the  PciDisylz'ania  Magazine  of  History,  Vol.  IX,  p.  279,  James 
Allen,  a  son  of  C.  J.  William  Allen,  says  in  his  diary,  under  date 
of  February  17,  1777: 

The  Assembly  have  appointed  Gen.  Roberdeau,  J.  B.  Smith,  WilHam 
Moore  &  reappointed  R.  Morris  &  Dr.  Franklin  Delegates  in  Congress 
&  left  out  G.  Clymer,  J.  Wilson,  J.  Smith,  G.  Ross,  Dr.  Rush,  G.  Tay- 
lor &  J.  Morton.  The  reason  for  leaving  out  so  many  old  members,  it 
is  said,  is  that  the  new  light  Presbyterian  Party  have  the  ascendant  in 
Assembly.  The  seven  retiring  members  had  all  signed  the  Declaration 
of  Independence. 

On  July  22,  1777,  Clymer  was  reappointed  in  the  place  of 
William  Moore,  who  had  declined  to  serve,  and  James  Wilson 
was  added  to  the  delegation.  The  retiring  of  George  Taylor  as 
a  delegate  to  Congress,  may  have  been  the  reason  for  his  retiring 
from  the  Supreme  Executive  Council,  and  not  attending  any 
meetings  after  the  above  letter  was  written. 

In  1779  the  Commissioners  of  Forfeited  Estates  sold  Gallo- 
way's right  in  the  Durham  plant  and  real  estate  at  public  sale. 
It  was  bought  by  four  men,  all  colonels,  Col.  Richard  Backhouse, 
Col.  George  Taylor,  Col.  Isaac  Sidman,  of  Easton,  and  Col. 
Robert  Lettis  Hooper,  Jr.,  who  were  equal  partners.  Most  of  the 
account  books  of  that  administration  fell  into  my  hands  and  are 
now  in  the  library  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society  at 
Doylestown.  These  original  and  authentic  records,  as  well  as  the 
public  records  contained  in  the  Pennsylvania  Archives,  show 
that  shot  and  shells  were  made  at  Durham  continuously,  in  large 
quantities,  throughout  the  entire  period  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 

The  management  of  the  Durham  works,  during  this  adminis- 
tration, devolved  upon  Col.  Backhouse,  who  was  the  ruling  spirit 
in  that  enterprise.  He  moved  to  Durham  March  1,  1780,  oc- 
cupying the  Mansion  House  heretofore  referred  to.  At  the 
termination  of  his  five  year  lease  of  Durham  Furnace  in  1779, 
George  Taylor  was  dispossessed  by  the  Commissioner  of  For- 
feited Estates,  and  then  moved  to  Greenwich  Township.  New 
Jersey,  where  he  was  operating  the  Greenwich  Forge,  owned  by 
Col.  Hugh  Hughes.  He  resided  there  until  April,  1780,  when  he 
moved  to  Easton.    This  is  shown  by  his  letter  to  Col.  Backhouse, 


126  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

dated  April  9,  1780,  the  original  of  which  is  in  the  New  York 
State  Library  at  Albany,  and  of  which  the  following  is  a  copy : 
j~)^^^  5j^  Greenwich   9th   April    1780 

I  proposed  coming  over  to  Day  but  have  a  Bad  Cold  &  the  weather 
unfavorable  must  Defer  it  until  I  move  when  Colo  Hooper  &  I  will 
spend  a  Day  with  you — If  you  can  spare  a  Gallon  of  Rum  please  to 
send  it  by  Tomm  I  expect  some  Waggons  to  morrow  to  Carry  a  part 
of  my  Family  if  you  want  the  half  Dozn  Chairs  I  shall  Leave  them 
here  for  you  I  would  save  sent  them  by  Snyder  but  was  afraid  they 
might  be  hurt  amongst  the  Iron  &  other  things  in  his  waggon 

I  am  Dear  Sir 
To  Richard  Backhouse  Yr.  Ruble  Servt 

Durham  Geo.  Taylor 

At  Easton  he  made  his  home  in  this  building  where  we  are 
assembled  this  afternoon.  He  occupied  the  house  under  lease 
from  the  estate  of  John  Hughes,  Jr.  It  was  buih  by  William 
Parsons  in  1753-54,  and  is  said  to  be  the  oldest  house  in  Easton, 
and  wherein  P'arsons  died  December  22,  1757.  The  lot,  at  that 
time  (No.  176  on  the  original  plan  of  Easton)  was  60  feet 
fronting  on  Hamilton  (now  Fourth)  Street  by  220  feet 
on  Ferry  Street.  The  old  engravings  show  that  there  was  a 
frame  attachment  to  the  stone  house  at  that  time.  I  will  take 
pleasure  in  presenting  one  of  these  old  etchings  to  this  Society. 
Letters  written  by  Geo.  Taylor  from  Easton  show  that  he  kept  a 
horse  and  two  cows.  It  is  therefore  likely  that  his  stables  were  also 
on  that  lot.  There  were  doubtless  also  quarters  for  his  slaves, 
for  while  living  here  he  kept  two  slaves,  which  under  the  law  for 
gradual  abolition  of  slavery'  in  Pennsylvania,  passed  March  1, 
1780,  he  was  obliged  to  register  in  the  office  of  the  Clerk  of  Ses- 
sions here  at  Easton.  (See  letter  from  George  Taylor  to  Robert 
Levers,  published  in  Henry's  History  of  the  Lehigh  Valley,  p.  97. 
This  letter  is  now  in  possession  of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical 
Society.) 

At  the  sale  of  his  personal  effects,  by  his  executors,  negro  Tom 
32  years  old,  sold  for  280  bushels  of  wheat,  valued  at  £77  or 
about  $205,  and  Sam,  also  32  years,  a  cripple,  fetched  but  £15 
or  about  $40.  The  inventory  of  his  estate  included  four  wigs,  ap- 
praised at  il,  but  which  "Mr.  Levers  thought  improper  to  ex- 
pose to  sale." 

It  was  here  in  this  house,  where  we  are  assembled  todav,  that 


126  HOMES  OF  GEORGE  TAYLOR 

dated  April  9.  1780,  the  original  of  which  is  in  the  New  York 
State  Library  at  Albany,  and  of  which  the  following  is  a  copy : 

^         ^,.  Greenwich   9th   April    1780 

Dear  bir 

I  proposed  coming  over  to  Day  but  have  a  Bad  Cold  &  the  weather 

unfavorable  must   Defer  it  until    I   move   when   Colo   Hooper   &   I   will 

spend  a   Day  with  you — If  you   can   spare  a   Gallon   of   Rum   please   to 

send  it  by  Tomm  I  expect  some  Waggons  to  morrow  to  Carry  a  part 

of  my   Family  if  you  want  the   half   Dozn   Chairs   I   shall   Leave   them 

here  for  you   I   would  save   sent  them  by  Snyder  but  was   afraid   they 

might  be  hurt  amongst  the  Iron  &  other  things  in  his  waggon 

I  am  Dear  Sir 

To  Richard  Backhouse  Yr.  Huble  Servt 

Durham  Geo.  Taylor 

At  Easton  he  made  his  home  in  this  building  where  we  are 
assembled  this  afternoon.  He  occupied  the  house  under  lease 
from  the  estate  of  John  Hughes,  Jr.  It  was  built  by  William 
Parsons  in  1753-54,  and  is  said  to  be  the  oldest  house  in  Easton, 
and  wherein  Parsons  died  December  22,  1757.  The  lot,  at  that 
time  (No.  176  on  the  original  plan  of  Easton)  w^as  60  feet 
fronting  on  Hamilton  (now  Fourth)  Street  by  220  feet 
on  Ferry  Street.  The  old  engravings  show  that  there  was  a 
frame  attachment  to  the  stone  house  at  that  time.  I  will  take 
pleasure  in  presenting  one  of  these  old  etchings  to  this  Society. 
Letters  written  by  Geo.  Taylor  from  Easton  show  that  he  kept  a 
horse  and  two  cows.  It  is  therefore  likely  that  his  stables  were  also 
on  that  lot.  There  were  doubtless  also  quarters  for  his  slaves, 
for  while  living  here  he  kept  two  slaves,  which  under  the  law  for 
gradual  abolition  of  slavery  in  Pennsylvania,  passed  March  1, 
1780,  he  was  obliged  to  register  in  the  office  of  the  Clerk  of  Ses- 
sions here  at  Easton.  (See  letter  from  George  Taylor  to  Robert 
Levers,  published  in  Henry's  History  of  the  Lehigh  Valley,  p.  97. 
This  letter  is  now  in  possession  of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical 
Society.) 

At  the  sale  of  his  personal  effects,  by  his  executors,  negro  Tom 
32  years  old,  sold  for  280  bushels  of  wheat,  valued  at  £77  or 
about  $205,  and  Sam,  also  32  years,  a  cripple,  fetched  but  il5 
or  about  $40.  The  inventory  of  his  estate  included  four  wigs,  ap- 
praised at  il,  but  which  "Mr.  Levers  thought  improper  to  ex- 
pose to  sale." 

It  was  here  in  this  house,  where  we  are  assembled  today,  that 


^/%ziyr^e.r^f/1^<^  ^-y-^/l^  //^  /^' nyAat-^Q  /iyt<f^^'^-»--  //s^y^c^  y2^D c-n^.  ^4^^  ^  ^''^'^  »"  ^^-w/ 


CLOSING  PARAGRAPH  OP  GEORGE  TAYLORS  WILL,  FULL   SIZE. 

Dated  January  6,   1781,. with  his  signature  and  signatures  of  witnesses. 

(George  Taylor  died  at  Baston,  February   23,   1781.) 


TIOMKS    OF    (iKOKCP.    TA^I.OR  127 

Col.  Taylor  passed  away  February  23,  1781,  having  lived  here 
less  than  eleven  months.  This  and  the  house  at  the  northeast 
corner  of  Northampton  and  Second  Streets,  heretofore  referred 
to.  are  the  only  houses  in  East  on  wherein  George  Taylor  re- 
sided. The  original  records  of  St.  John's  Lutheran  Church, 
across  the  way,  record  the  date  of  his  death,  and  also 
the  date  of  the  passing  of  his  son,  James.  These  records  would 
be  conclusive  evidence  in  any  court  of  law,  and  should  set  at  rest 
the  date  of  Col.  Taylor's  death,  for  most  historians  say  it  was 
on  February  25.  Col.  Taylor's  will,  dated  January  6,  1781,  is 
recorded  here  at  Easton  (Rook  I,  p.  275),  but  the  original  docu- 
ment long  since  disappeared  from  the  Recorder's  ofifice,  and  is 
now  in  the  Archives  of  the  New  York  Public  Library,  which 
has  kindly  made  for  me  this  photostat  of  it,  which  I  now 
take  pleasure  in  presenting  to  your  Society.  (An  etching  of  the 
last  part  of  Geo.  Taylor's  will  with  his  signature  and  signatures 
of  the  three  witnesses  is  shown  herewith.)  He  appointed  his 
three  friends,  Robert  Lettis  Hooper,  Jr.,  Robert  Traill  and  Robert 
Levers,  as  his  executors.  He  gave  to  each  of  them  a  keepsake  in 
the  following  words : 

"Unto  the  said  Robert  Levers  my  silver  mounted  double  barrel  gun, 
to  be  engraved  thus — The  Gift  of  George  Taylor,  Esquire,  and  I  like- 
wise give  and  bequeath  unto  Robert  Lettis  Hooper,  Jr.,  a  neat  silver 
mounted  small  sword,  to  be  engraved  thus — In  Memory  of  George 
Taylor,  Esquire,  and  unto  the  said  Robert  Traill  I  do  give  and  be- 
queath one  pair  of  pistols. "'- 

Col.  Hooper  did  not  qualify  as  an  executor,  although  his  name 
appears  as  such  in  an  advertisement,  for  settlement  of  the  estate, 
which  they  inserted  in  the  Pcuiisylvania  Ga:;cttc  and  Weekly  Ad- 
vertiser, for  March  12,  and  April  4,  1781.  Robert  Levers 
died  May  1788,  leaving  Robert  Traill  as  the  sole  executor  when 
the  accounts  were  filed  and  audited  in  1799,  eighteen  years 
after  Col.  Taylor's  death.  The  settlement  of  his  partnership 
accounts  at  Durham  Iron  Works  were  long  drawn  out,  and  on 
final  settlement  of  his  estate  it  was  found  to  be  insolvent.'-' 

12  These  beautiful  flint  lock  pistols  are  now  owned  by  Dr.  E.  M.  Green,  a 
frreat-grandson  of  Robert  Traill,  of  Ea.ston.  who  has  kindly  allowed  me  to 
photograph  them  to  use  as  a  tail  piece  to  this  paper. 

i.-J  Henry'.s  History  of  the  Lehigh  Valley,  p.  97,  and  the  rejjort  of  auditors 
on  file  in  the  courthou.se  at  Easton. 


128 


ITOMES    OF    GEORGE    TAYLOR 


COL.   RODERT  LETTIS   HOOPER,   JR. 


Col.  Robert  Lettis  Hooper,  Jr.,  was  a  man  of  more  than  ordi- 
nary parts.  During  the  Revolutionary  War  he  at  first  lived  in 
Lower  Saucon  Township,^  "*  but  later,  while  filling  the  office  of 
Deputy  Quarter  Master  General, he  lived  in  Easton, making  his 
home  in  the  stone  house,  still  standing,  at  the  northwest  corner 
of  Northampton  and  Fifth  Streets.  His  first  wife  died  while 
living  in  that  house.  You  have,  of  course,  noticed  the  exterior 
steps  leading  to  the  second  story,  as  shown  by  the  etching  below. 
Col.  Hooper  died  at  Trenton.  X.  J..  July  30,  1797,  in  the  sixty- 
sixth  year  of  his  age. 


HOME   OF   ROBERT   LETTIS    HOOPER,    JR. 
EASTON,  PA. 

INIany  letters  written  by  Col.  Hooper  fell  into  my  hands,  most 
of  which  I  gave  to  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society.  One  of 
special  interest  I  presented  to  Mrs.Abram  S.Hewit  (a  daughter 
of  Peter  Cooper),  who  had  it  framed  and  hung  in  the  hall  of 
Ringwood  Manor,  her  country  home.  That  letter,  addressed  to 
Richard  Backhouse  is  so  interesting  that  I  will  read  it  as  follows : 

14  See  his  letter  published  in  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History,  Vol. 
XXIV,  p.  3;tl,  wherein  he  says  his  hnme  is  in  Saucon,  five  miles  south  of 
Bethlehem. 


HOMES    OF    GEORGE    TAYLOR  129 

Ringwood,   Septemr.   7th.    1781. 
Sir: 

I  have  long  wished  to  visit  you  but  my  worthy  friend,  I  have  been 
too  much  engaged.  I  must  not  trifle  with  you  &  in  plain  truth  I  have 
been  hunting  a  wife.  I  am  sure  among  all  my  numerous  acquaintances 
there  is  not  one  that  esteems  me  more  than  you  do,  and  I  love  you  with 
the  genuine  warmth  of  true  friendship — You,  then,  Dear  Sir,  must  be 
pleased  when  I  tell  you  that  I  am  engaged  to  Mrs.  Erskine,  a  lady 
high  in  estimation  for  her  good  sense,  affability  and  sweetness  of  Tem- 
per &  blessed  withall  with  a  plentiful  fortune.  I  assure  you  that  I  do 
on  the  most  deliberate  principles  of  honor  think  that  comfort  and 
felicity  will  attend  the  choice  I  have  made. 

I  am  very  anxious  to  see  and  converse  with  you  on  these  important 
matters,  which  I  cannot  commit  to  writing,  and  if  I  can't  see  you  next 
week  I  can't  meet  you  this  fall.  If  therefore  this  finds  you  at  home  I 
request  you'll  do  me  the  favour  to  meet  me  at  my  house  next  Wednes- 
day or  Thursday  when  I  will  be  at  home.  I  am  sure  you'll  come  if  you 
can,  the  business  will  be  short  and  I  cannot  come  to  you. 

******** 

My  compliments  wates  on  Mrs.  Backhouse — accept  my  wishes  for 
your  prosperity  and  believe  me, 

To  Richard  Backhouse,  Esqr.  Dr.  Sir  Yr  Friend  &  Humble  Sv. 

Durham  R.  L.  Hooper,  Jr. 

(His  marriage  license  was  issued  October  31,  1781. — See  N.  J. 
Archives,  Vol.  22,  page  185.) 

The  Marquis  de  Chastellux  who  stopped  at  Ringwood  Furnace 
December  19,  1789,  and  called  upon  Mrs.  Erskine,  says: 

"I  entered  a  very  handsome  house  where  everybody  was  in  mourn- 
ing. Mr.  Erskine  bein^  dead  two  months  before.  Mrs.  Erskine  his 
widow  is  about  forty,  and  did  not  appear  the  less  fresh  or  tranquil  for 
her  misfortune." 

Robert  Erskine,  whose  charming  widow  Col.  Hooper  was  to 
marry,  was  sent  over  from  England  by  the  London  Company,  in 
1771,  to  superintend  their  iron  mines.  He  Hes  buried  on  the  Ring- 
wood  estate,  which  he  was  operating  during  the  war.  A  marker 
erected  by  the  Government  contains  this  inscription : 

"In  Memory  of  Robert  Erskine,  F.  R.  S. 

Geographer  and  Surveyor  General  to  the  Army  of  the 

United  States. 

Son  of  Rev.  Ralph  Erskine,  late  Minister  at  Dunfermline, 

IN  Scotland. 

Born  September  7,  1735.     Died  October  2,  1780 

Aged  45  years  and  25  days. 


130  HOMES    OF    GEORGE    TAYLOR 

This  monument  is  an  object  of  interest  to  the  Hewitt  family 
and  their  guests.  One  of  the  Hewitt  boys  is  named  Erskine  in 
memory  of  this  man.  It  is  quite  a  coincidence  that  in  after  years 
Messrs.  Cooper  &  Hewitt  should,  at  the  same  time,  own  both 
Ringwood  and  Durham  properties,  both  established  in  early  Co- 
lonial times.  A  splendid  biographical  notice  of  Col.  Hooper  is 
contained  in  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History,  Vol  36,  p. 
60  et  seq. 

Another  letter  from  Col.  Hooper  to  his  friend  Col.  Backhouse, 
refers  to  his  purchase  of  a  large  tract  of  land  in  the  Genesee 
country,  the  land  of  the  Six  Nations,  on  the  Susquehanna  River 
in  New  York,  which  he  called  the  "Land  of  Caanan."  When 
motoring  through  that  interesting  section  last  summer,  I  w^as 
surprised  to  notice,  on  the  road  between  Binghamton  and  Owego, 
an  automobile  tire  advertisement  containing  the  following: 

"When  Binghamton  was  surveyed  in  1786  by  Col.  Robert  Lettis 
Hooper,  Jr.,  he  lay  in  a  canoe  recording  the  distances  from  a  pocket 
compass,  working  in  this  way  through  fear  of  being  shot  by  unfriendly 
Indians." 

James  Wilson,  a  Signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
Simeon  DeWitt,  Surveyor  General  of  New  York,  and  William 
.Bingham,  United  States  Senator,  1795  to  1801,  were  associated 
with  Col.  Hooper  in  these  Genesee  lands,  which  seem  to  have 
aggregated  30,620  acres,  lying  on  both  sides  of  the  Susquehanna 
River.  When  the  lands  were  partitioned,  that  part  which  was  to 
become  the  site  of  Binghamton,  N.  Y.,  was  apportioned  to  William 
Bingham,  for  whom  that  city  was  named. 

ROBERT  TRAILL. 

Robert  Traill  was  a  leading  and  influential  citizen  of  Easton, 
as  one  historian  says,'  "in  every  respect,  he  was  for  many  years 
everything  to  everybody."  He  was  the  ancestor  of  Dr.  Edgar  M. 
Green  and  his  sister,  Mrs.  Dr.  Charles  Mclntyre,  who  is  present 
with  us  here  today.  He  was  born  in  the  Orkney  Islands,  Scot- 
land, April  29,  1744,  emigrated  to  America  in  1763,  died  at 
Easton  July  31,  1816.  In  the  early  tax  lists  he  is  assessed  as  a 
shoemaker.^^     Later  he  was  a  school  teacher;  member   of   the 

15  See  "History  of  Northampton  County,"  published  in  1873,  where  at  page 
73,  a  list  of  taxables  is  recorded. 


GEORGE  TAYLOR  MONUMENT  IN   BASTON   CEMETERY. 
Erected  to  his  memory  in  1854.     On  April  20    1870    his  body  was  removed 
from    the   vard   of   St    John's  Lutheran   Church,   Easton     Pa.,    and   re-interiea 
fmmediateb    in  front  of  this  monument,  which  bears  the  followmg  mscnption  . 


IN    MEMORY    OF 

GEORGE    TAYLOR 

ONE    OP    THE    SIGNERS 

OF    THE    DECLARATION    OF 

\MFRICAN    INDEPENDENCE. 

JULY    4.    A.    D.    1776. 

BORN     1716,     DIED     1781. 


HOMES    OF    GEORGE    TAYLOR  131 

Committee  of  Safety  from  Northampton  County;^''  admitted  to 
the  bar  of  Northampton  County  in  1777;  Justice  of  the  Peace, 
1777-1781;  Sheriff  of  Northampton  County,  1781-1784;  Repre- 
sentative in  the  General  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania,  1785-86; 
member  of  the  Supreme  Executive  Council,  1786-87 ;  and  an 
Associate  Judge  of  Northampton  County,  1790-92.  His  body 
lies  buried  in  the  Easton  Cemetery. 

ROBERT  LEVERS. 

Robert  Levers,  the  other  of  Col.  Taylor's  executors, ,  was  a 
great  and  fearless  patriot  during  the  Revolutionary  struggle.  He 
came  to  America  from  England  in  April,  1748.  He  taught  school 
for  a  time  near  Philadelphia,  then  associated  himself  with  the 
Moravians.  Was  associated  with  Mr.  C.  Brockden,  Recorder  of 
Deeds  at  Philadelphia  for  three  months.  He  writes  "I  then  went 
about  35  miles  in  the  country  to  be  a  clerk  at  an  iron  works, 
where  I  stayed  about  four  months  at  i50  cy.  a  year."  Still 
later  he  was  in  the  office  of  Richard  Peters,  whose  partner  he 
became  in  some  land  deals  in  Northampton  County,  making  his 
home  at  Saylorsburg,  where  he  also  kept  an  hotel  and  store.  He 
was  appointed  Prothonotary  and  Clerk  of  the  Orphans  Court 
for  Northampton  County,  serving  from  1777  to  1788.  He  was 
the  authorized  agent  of  the  Supreme  Executive  Council  for 
Easton  and  surrounding  territory.  On  July  8,  1776,  he  gathered 
the  people  together,  in  Centre  Square  at  Easton,  by  ringing  the 
courthouse  bell,  and  read  to  them,  from  the  courthouse  steps,  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Might  it  not  be  in  order  for  this 
society  or  for  the  people  of  Easton,  to  place  a  monument  to  his 
memory  in  Centre  Square?  When  the  British  were  about  to 
enter  Philadelphia  in  1777,  and  the  capital  of  our  new-born  na- 
tion transferred  to  Lancaster,  Pa.,  the  money,  books  and  papers 
of  the  Colonial  Government  were  sent  to  him  at  Easton  for 
safe  keeping. ^^  He  stored  them  in  his  bedroom  on  the  sec- 
ond story  of  his  house,  which  he  rented  from  Conrad  Ihrie. 
Sr.,  located  on  the  east  side  of   South   Third   Street.     Robert 

16  Robert  Traill  was  clerk  of  the  Committee  of  Safety  for  Northampton 
County;  see  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Eighth  Series.  Vol  V,  p.  4.  Dr.  Edward 
M.  Green  has  in  his  possession  the  original  minutes  kept  by  him. 

17  See  many  references  in  Colonial  Records,  Vols.  XI,  XII,  XIV,  and  XV. 
also  Pennsylvania  Archives,  First  Series,  Vols.  V  and  VI.  Also  Pennsylvania 
Magazine  of  History,  Vol.  I,  p.   137. 


132  HOMES    OF    GEORGE    TAYLOR 

Levers  was  in  fact  the  local  dictator  of  the  new  govern- 
ment, reporting  all  cases  of  disloyalty  or  seeming  disloyalty. 
guarding  the  ferries  over  both  rivers,  and  putting  all  suspects 
under  arrest.  It  was  his  duty  to  see  that  the  Oath  of  Allegiance 
was  taken,  particularly  by  former  office  holders.  It  was 
through  him  that  Hon.  John  Penn,  then  Governor  for  the 
Proprietaries,  former  Lieutenant-Governor  James  Hamilton, 
Assemblyman  James  Allen  and  Chief  Justice  Benjamin  Chew 
were  put  under  parole.  They  were  ordered  by  the  Supreme  Execu- 
tive Council  to  be  "imprisoned  and  removed  from  the  state."  It  ap- 
pears, however,  that  they  were  permitted  to  remain  under  parole 
at  the  home  of  James  Allen  at  Allentown.  Later  several  of  them 
were  removed  to  the  Union  Iron  Works,  near  Clinton,  N.  J., 
owned  by  former  Chief  Justice  William  Allen  and  Joseph  Turner. 
Robert  Levers  died  at  Easton  May  20,  1788,  while  holding  the 
position  of  Prothonotary.  He  left  to  survive  him  four  children 
and  a  widow  nee  Mary  Church,  who  died  in  1810. 

GEORGE  Taylor's  death  and  burial. 

A  letter  in  the  archives  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  So- 
ciety from  Samuel  Williams  of  Greenwich  Forge,  N.  J.,  to 
Richard  Backhouse  at  Durham,  bearing  date  February  22,  1781, 
one  day  before  George  Taylor  passed  away,  concludes  as  follows: 

I  was  uf'  at  Easton  when  your  Boy  was  over  Taking  wheat  to  Mr. 
Taylor  as  he  was  always  sending  for  money  and  I  had  none  to  give 
him.  But  poor  Owld  gentlemen  I  believe  his  Dunning  is  allmost  at  an 
End — I  did  not  see  him  as  he  could  not  be  Spoke  with  he  has  Been 
Tapt  Tw^ice  the  Doctor  told  me. 

As  already  stated  he  died  at  Easton,  February  23,  1781, 
his  body  was  laid  at  rest  in  the  Lutheran  churchyard  across 
the  way,  on  the  southeast  corner  of  Fourth  and  Ferry  Streets, 
When  the  Belvidere  Delaware  Railroad,  now  part  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania system,  was  extended  to  Phillipsburg  in  1854,  the  event  was 
celebrated  on  February  3d  of  that  year,  with  a  grand  entertainment 
and  reception  by  the  citizens  of  Eastoli  and  Phillipsburg,  for 
which  a  large  amount  of  money  had  been  subscribed.  A  special 
train  of  fifteen  cars  started  from  Philadelphia,  carrying  officials 
and  guests  from  that  city,  and  from  Trenton  and  other  points, 
which  included  the  Governor  of  New  Jersey  and  the  heads  of  de- 


HOMES    OF    GEORGE    TAYLOR 


133 


partments,  and  many  other  distinguished  citizens.^-  The  money 
subscribed  for  that  entertainment,  which  included  a  grand  ball  in 
the  evening,  was  not  all  used,  and  at  the  suggestion  of  Judge 
James  M.  Porter,  the  balance  was  expended  to  erect,  in  the 
Easton  Cemetery,  that  beautiful  Italian  marble  monument  to  the 
memory  of  George  Taylor.^'*  His  body,  however,  was  allowed  to 
remain  in  the  Lutheran  churchyard  until  the  Easton  school-board 
purchased  that  corner  from  St.  John's  Lutheran  Church,  when 
on  April  30,  1870,  it  was  removed  to  the  Easton  Cemetery  and 
deposited  in  its  last  resting  place  on  the  east  side  of  the  monu- 
ment.-*^* The  school-board  still  further  honored  his  memory  by 
naming  that  schoolhouse  "The  Taylor  Building." 

I  wish,  for  the  sake  of  this  patriotic  Society,  that  I  could  arrive 
at  a  different  conclusion,  but  the  fact  remains  that  the  preponder- 
ance of  evidence  shows  that  George  Taylor  was  a  resident  of 
Durham  Township,  in  Bucks  County,  when  on  August  2,  1776.  he 
affixed  his  signature  to  that  immortal  document  the  Declaration 
of  Independence. 


18  See  Henry's  History  of  the  Lehigh  Valley,  ] 

19  Recollections  of  B.  F.  Facltenthal,  Sr.,  Esq. 

20  Official  Records  of  the  Easton  Cemetery. 


p.  151  to  157. 

(b.   1825,  d.   1892). 


Flint  lock  pistols  which  George  Taylor  bequeathed  to  Robert  Traill. 
Now  in  possession  of  Dr.  Edgar  M.   Green  of  Easton,  Pa. 


Bucks  County  Women  in  Wartime. 

BY    MRS.    MARY    HEATON,    DOYLESTOWN,    PA. 
(Cuttalossa  Valley  Meeting,  June   15,   1918.) 

TO  say  that  war  has  been  held  in  abhorrence  by  women  in 
all  ages,  goes  without  saying.     It  is  equally  true  that  they 
have  ever  born  the  heroic  and  selfsacrificing  part,  and  our 
Bucks  county  women  have  been  no  exception. 

Any  effort  to  chronicle  the  heroic  work  done  by  our  women  of 
1776  and  1861,  is  hampered  by  the  absence  of  specific  records  of 
their  loyal  services,  except  in  a  few  localities  in  our  county  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War.  Although  Bucks  county  produced  no  Lydia 
Darrochs  or  Mollie  Pitchers,  we  are  convinced  that  her  women 
were  zealous  and  untiring  in  rendering  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
sick,  wounded  and  weary  soldiers.  While  history  has  not  classi- 
fied any  battle  as  having  been  fought  within  the  borders  of  Bucks 
county  during  the  Revolution,  the  battle  of  Crooked  Billet  at  or 
near  what  is  now  Hatboro,  Montgomery  county,  was  waged  so 
near  the  county-line  that  the  ragged  edges  extended  within  our 
borders,  and  moreover  Bucks  county  suffered  heavily  from  forag- 
ing raids,  and  vast  numbers  of  wounded  soldiers  were  cared  for 
m  our  county.  Both  Buckingham  and  Plumstead  Meeting-houses 
were  used  as  hospitals  and  numbers  of  wounded  and  sick  sol- 
diers were  cared  for  in  private  homes,  where  they  were  nursed 
back  to  health  or  their  last  hours  soothed  by  the  ministering  care 
of  our  loyal  Bucks  county  women. 

We  also  have  abundant  evidence  that  during  the  Civil  War 
the  women  of  Solebury,  Buckingham,  Durham  and  other  town- 
ships of  Bucks,  spent  many  weary  hours  in  scraping  lint,  pre- 
paring bandages  and  clothing  for  the  soldiers,  as  well  as  to  pro- 
vide them  with  special  articles  of  food.  But  few  of  the  active 
participants  are  left  to  tell  us  in  detail  of  this  noble  work,  and  in 
the  brief  time  allowed  to  the  preparation  of  this  paper,  it  was  im- 
possible to  get  in  touch  with  those  people,  now  aged,  who  could 
give  a  clear  account  of  the  work  in  their  localities.  We  must 
therefore  rely  upon  such  information  and  such  records  as  are 
available,  and  if  I  have  given  more  prominence  to  one  locality 


BUCKS    COUNTY   WOMEN    IN    WAR   TIME  135 

than  to  another,  it  is  simply  for  the  reason  given,  and  not  that 
those  omitted  were  less  loyal  or  industrious. 

We  will  first  show  that  relief  work  done  by  women  during  the 
Revolution  was  well  organized  by  naming  a  few  of  the  more  im- 
portant leaders  and  the  kind  of  work  they  were  connected  with. 

Rebecca  Lyon  Armstrong  was  the  first  women  to  organize  a 
society  in  Pennsylvania.  She  led  the  women  of  Carlisle  into  ac- 
tive assistance  in  clothing  Washington's  army,  supplying  also 
many  other  comforts. 

Sarah  Nelson  McAllister  of  Juniata  county,  organized  the  first 
women's  agricultural  society.  She  went  from  farm  to  farm  tell- 
ing the  women  that  if  they  did  not  plow  and  sow  they  would 
starve,  as  their  husbands  would  not  be  home  in  time  for  the 
work.  Washington's  soldiers  did  not  reach  home  until  Decem- 
ber, and  they  would  have  been  in  want,  as  many  of  the  settle- 
ments were  very  short  of  food. 

Elizabeth  Porter,  residing  near  Philadelphia,  formed  a  society 
for  weaving  and  making  soldier's  clothing,  for  it  is  well  known 
many  were  in  rags.  Even  the  ofiicers'  clothing  had  become  very 
shabby,  and  being  out  of  cloth  they  ripped  their  coats  apart, 
washed  them,  and  turned  them  inside  out.  and  they  looked  so 
well  that  it  was  often  remarked,  "Oh  yes,  he  has  a  turned 
coat  on." 

In  order  that  Washington's  armies  might  be  better  fed  and 
clothed  the  ladies  not  only  devoted  much  time  to  cloth  and  gar- 
ment making  but  practiced  many  economies  as  well,  as  may  be 
seen  from  one  of  Sarah  Mifflin's  letters  which  says : 

"I  have  retrenched  in  my  expenses,  for  both  my  table  and  family. 
Tea  I  have  not  drank  since  Christmas,  nor  bought  a  new  gown  or  cap 
since  the  affair  at  Lexington;  and  what  I  never  did  before,  have  learned 
to  knit,  making  socks  for  the  soldiers." 

The  cloth  used  at  that  time  was  probably  what  was  called 
oznaburg — a  mixture  of  flax  and  tow- — which  followed  the  buck- 
skin of  the  pioneers.  A  woolen  cloth  called  linsey-woolsey  was 
woven  also.  Tailors  and  dressmakers  went  from  house  to  house 
making  clothes  for  the  well-to-do  families.  In  later  times  men 
operated  the  larger  cloth  weaving  looms  but  women  continued 
to  make  the  linen. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  encampments  the  women  workers  were 
naturally  still  more  active,  the  need  being  near  at  hand ;  so  we 


136  BUCKS   COUNTY   WOMEN   IN    WAR  TIME 

learn  that  while  Washington's  army  was  encamped  on  Carr's'  Hill, 
near  Hartsville,  the  women  wove,  cut  and  made  garments  by 
day,  spinning  and  knitting  by  firelight  in  the  evenings. 

The  gristmills  of  this  vicinity  were  then  grinding  day  and 
night — mostly  corn,  this  being  the  most  plentiful  grain.  The 
British  in  Philadelphia  and  the  tories  through  the  country  did 
much  to  hinder  the  feeding  of  our  armies.  They  so  drained  the 
country  of  luxuries  that  only  the  simplest  foods  were  left ;  their 
common  diet  was  milk,  bread  and  pie  for  breakfast ;  meal,  pork 
or  bacon  with  a  wheat  pudding  and  molasses  for  dinner;  mush 
or  hominy,  with  milk,  butter  and  honey  for  supper. 

Previous  to  the  battle  of  Trenton  Washington  was  quartered 
at  Keith  Farm,  situate  at  the  foot  of  Jerico  Mountain,  two  miles 
from  the  place  where  he  and  his  army  crossed  the  Delaware. 
On  the  night  of  the  battle,  when  they  arrived  on  the  Jersey  side 
of  the  river,  the  family  of  John  Norton  (who  owned  a  farm  on 
the  river  bank,  where  the  city  of  Trenton  now  stands),  cooked 
and  baked  all  night  to  feed  Washington  and  his  men.  They  used 
everything  eatable  on  the  place  and  then  only  a  part  was  fed. 
Mrs.  Emeline  P.  Newbold,  who  now  resides  in  Langhorne,  is  a 
descendent  of  the  family  of  John  Norton. 

Then  as  now  the  women  nursed  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers, 
and  as  the  armies  were  comparatively  small  they  were  often 
quartered  in  private  houses  and  various  other  buildings. 

Directly  following  the  battle  of  Brandywine  in  1777,  the  Con- 
tinentals sent  orderlies  ahead  of  their  army  to  find  winter  quar- 
ters for  the  officers  and  men.  Langhorne,  which  was  then  Four 
Lanes  End,  was  selected  and  the  officers  were  quartered  in  the 
home  of  Joshua  and  Sarah  Richardson,  a  large  stone  house  at 
the  intersection  of  the  lanes.  This  house  is  still  standing  and  in 
good  condition.  The  house  opposite,  a  large  brick  dwelling  owned 
and  occupied  by  Gilbert  Hicks,  a  tory,  was  confiscated  by  the 
government  and  used  throughout  their  stay  as  a  hospital,  whicH 
before  the  long  winter  months  were  over  was  badly  needed,  as 
army  fever  broke  out  among  the  man,  and  many  were  sick  and 
many  died.  The  Friends  Meeting-house  was  used  as  a  sleeping 
and  living  quarters  for  the  privates,  and  in  the  southern  end  of 
the  burying  ground  lie  hundreds  of  their  bodies. 

Lafayette,  who  was   wounded  at  the  battle  of   Brandywine, 


BUCKS    COUNTY   WOMEN    IN    WAR   TIME  137 

Sept.  11,  1777,  came  to  Four  Lanes  End  by  way  of  Bristol  en- 
route  for  Bethlehem,  and  stayed  at  the  Richardson  house  for 
several  days  rest  before  continuing  his  journey.  In  September 
1824,  when  as  the  nation's  guest  Lafayette  again  visited  this 
country,  on  his  way  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia,  he  stopped 
at  Bristol,  and  was  there  introduced  to  many  persons,  including 
Mrs.  Bassonett,  who  had  nursed  him  after  he  was  wounded  in 
the  battle  of  Brandywine. 

During  the  Civil  \\"ar  the  women  of  this  neighborhood  seem 
to  have  been  quite  active.  There  was  a  society  formed  at  Lang- 
horne  to  care  for  the  soldiers  called  The  Ladies'  Aid,  Langhorne 
then  being  known  as  Attleboro.  This  society  held  an  all-day 
meeting  every  Wednesday  in  the  townhall  over  Dr.  Pemberton 
Minster's  drug  store  on  Maple  avenue.  There  was  a  long  table 
in  the  room  about  which  the  ladies  gathered  to  scrape  lint  and 
cut  and  sew  garments  for  the  soldiers  in  the  field  and  hospitals. 
They  knitted,  canned,  baked  and  did  what  the  Red  Cross  of  to- 
day is  doing.  At  that  time  communities  had  their  own  regiments 
and  the  ladies  worked  for  them,  often  driving  in  carriages  to 
camps  and  hospitals  with  clothing  and  food  they  had  made  and 
prepared.  They  raised  money  in  various  ways  to  carry  on  this 
work.  At  one  "fair"  they  had  a  large  tree  filled  with  gifts  which 
were  chanced  off  at  ten  cents  a  chance.  Dr.  Minster  drew  a  doll. 
He  having  been  long  married  and  no  children  this  caused  much 
merriment,  and  this  doll,  which  they  named  "Flora,"  remained 
in  the  family  until  about  a  year  ago. 

Those  active  in  the  town  war  work  were  x\nnie  Watson,  Jane 
Wildman,  Lizzie,  Rebecca  and  Jane  Swartzlander,  Rachel  Min- 
ster, Anna  Richardson,  Effie  File,  Tacy  and  Anna  Mather,  Lizzie 
Comfort,  Mary  J.  Richardson,  Susanna  and  Maryann  Palmer. 
At  the  Palmer  farm  many  bottles  of  cherry  syrup  were  made  and 
sent  to  the  hospitals.  Annie  W^atson  (mother  of  Henry  W.  Wat- 
son, our  representative  in  Congress),  started  the  sewing  upon  the 
immense  Attleboro  flag,  which  was  made  by  the  ladies  in  the 
work  room.  It  is  still  in  existence  and  has  figured  in  all  the  po- 
litical parades  of  the  town.  Until  the  time  of  his  death  Dr. 
Minster  took  charge  of  the  flag  in  his  own  home,  but  a  short 
time  ago,  battered  and  torn,  it  was  seen  floating  from  the  window 
of  the  Odd  Fellows'  Hall,  its  present  home. 


138  BUCKS    COUNTY   WOMEN    IN    WAR   TIME 

The  great  Sanitary  Fair  of  Philadelphia  was  held  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Sanitary  Commission  of  Pennsylvania,  New  Jer- 
sey and  Delaware,  it  being  intended  as  a  means  of  adding  to  the 
fund  for  the  use  of  the  sick  and  wounded  of  the  army  and  navy 
engaged  in  the  Civil  War.  The  commission  built  an  enormous 
temporary  building  covering  Logan  square,  and  there  the  fair 
was  opened  with  appropriate  ceremonies  on  June  7,  1864,  in  the 
presence  of  Governor  Curtin,  of  Pennsylvania ;  Governor  Paker, 
of  New  Jersey,  and  Governor  Cannon,  of  Delaware.  The  con- 
tributions of  money  and  articles  for  display  and  sale  were  gen- 
erous and  the  sale  was  such  a  success  that  when  it  closed  on 
June  28th,  it  had  realized  for  the  commission  over  $1,080,000. 
Thousands  of  people  attended  daily  and  the  crowd  was  especial- 
ly large  on  June  16th,  when  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  paid  it 
a  visit.  The  president  signed  his  name  to  printed  copies  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  which  were  sold,  those  that  were 
preserved  are  today  of  great  value. 

The  women  of  Bucks  county  took  a  great  interest  in  this  fair 
and  it  is  said  that  wagons  filled  with  visitors  and  contributors 
made  almost  a  continuous  procession  on  the  York  Pike.  Mrs. 
Henry  Darlington  and  Miss  Irene  Henry  were  the  Doylestown 
collectors  for  this  fare. 

The  "Cooper  Shop  Refreshment  Saloon"  was  established  at 
Front  and  Washington  streets,  Philadelphia,  for  the  purpose  of 
feeding  soldiers  passing  through  the  city  on  their  way  south. 
Mrs.  Halsey  Gibbs  and  Mrs.  Josiah  Hart  collected  provisions  in 
this  neighborhood  for  the  Cooper  Shop  and  some  of  their  ex- 
periences were  interesting.  They  used  a  two-seated  carriage  with 
the  rear  seat  removed  for  their  trips  through  the  country,  putting 
contributions  in  back.  On  one  of  their  excursions  they  noticed 
a  churn  at  a  springhouse  and  guessed  that  batter  making  had 
just  been  finished.  The  farmer  tried  to  put  them  oflf  by  saying 
that  it  had  not  yet  been  printed,  but  they  said  they  would  be  glad 
to  wait  until  that  was  done.  After  waiting  quite  a  long  while 
the  farmer  said  to  his  wife  that  they  might  as  well  print  the  but- 
ter and  give  some  or  the  ladies  would  stay  for  supper.  An  an- 
other farm  house,  the  collectors  suggested  a  few  chickens  as  a 
contribution.  The  farmer  "had  no  time  to  pick  chickens,"  but 
one  of  the  ladies  said,  "Oh,  never  mind  about  picking,  just  cut 


BUCKS    COUNTY   WOMEN    IN    WAR   TIME  139 

their  heads  off  and  put  them  in  the  carriage."  And  they  got  the 
chickens.  On  their  return  one  of  the  husbands  said  he  expected 
to  see  them  driving  in  a  cow  the  next  time.  On  one  occasion  a 
boy  was  talking  earnestly  to  his  mother,  who  was  getting  some 
things  ready  for  the  Cooper  Shop  carriage.  The  mother,  laugh- 
ing, said,  "He  wants  to  know  if  he  can't  give  his  banty  chicken 
for  the  soldiers,  why  it  wouldn't  make  a  mouthful."  But  the 
banty  was  accepted  and  sold  at  auction,  bringing  quite  a  sum. 

Miss  Anna  Widdefield,  who  lived  on  a  farm  near  Bridge  Point, 
and  who  had  three  brothers  in  the  army,  helped  every  day  at  the 
Cooper  Shop.  Mr.  Howard  Magill  tells  me  that  every  year  on 
Memorial  Day  our  local  G.  A.  R.  Post  decorates  her  grave. 

The  Ladies'  Aid  Society  of  Warminster  was  organized  at  the 
home  of  Margaret  H.  Twining  in  December,  1861,  by  Hannah 
C.  Davis,  Elizabeth  T.  Kirk,  Anna  Twining,  Martha  Davis, 
Rachel  Wynkoop,  Rebecca  R.  Twining,  and  others,  who  had  been 
meeting  as  a  Literary  Society  previovis  to  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War.  From  the  time  of  organization  until  June,  1865, 
this  society  met  on  W^ednesday  of  each  week.  In  all  this  time 
there  was  never  a  meeting  omitted  because  of  storm  or  bad  travel- 
ing, although  at  no  time  was  the  membership  greater  than  forty. 
The  first  meetings  were  held  in  a  room  of  Charles  Kirk's  wagon 
house.  After  September,  1863,  the  Warminster  Friend's  Meet- 
ing-house was  always  the  place  of  meeting  until  the  close  of  the 
society.  In  order  to  procure  funds  each  members  gave  a  month- 
ly contribution  of  ten  cents  and  collected  all  manner  of  contri- 
butions from  friends  and  acquaintances.  This  soon  proved  in- 
sufficient, and  therefore  mass  meetings,  fairs,  strawberry  festi- 
vals, lectures  and  entertainments  were  resorted  to  raise  funds. 
The  following  is  the  last  paragraph  of  the  final  report  of  the 
society  prepared  by  the  corresponding  secretary,  Mrs.  Mary  D. 
Jarrett : 

"In  the  summer  of  1864,  a  hospital  being  established  at  College  Wharf, 
near  Bristol,  called  Whithall,  to  which  some  eight  or  ten  hundred  men, 
very  weak  and  sick,  were  sent,  unprepared  for, — a  call  was  made  in  the 
surrounding  country,  for  supplies  and  assistance,  to  which  we  re- 
sponded by  sending  a  large  committee  with  a  large  quantity  of  refresh- 
ments and  substantial,  of  which  the  greater  part  of  the  hungry  boys 
partook  to  their  full  enjoyment.  It  was,  indeed,  a  great  pleasure  to 
witness   the   eagerness   with   which   they   received   the    morsel   of   bread 


140  BUCKS    COUNTY   WOMEN    IN    WAR   TIME 

and  butter,  a  cup  of  boiled  milk,  cooked  fruit,  pickles,  etc.,  as  we  seem 
to  have  been  favored  with  a  variety  of  edibles  suitable  for  the  different 
cases.  Some  time  having  elapsed  before  the  place  became  fully  organ- 
ized, and  fresh  arrivals  of  the  sick  almost  daily  coming  in,  it  was  sug- 
gested that  a  committee  from  the  different  Aids  should  be  sent  to 
assist  in  waiting  upon,  and  preparing  sick  dishes  for  the  poor  emaciated 
men.  We  united  with  the  suggestion,  and  our  worthy  President,  (then 
Mary  M.  Carr)  in  company  with  a  lady  from  the  Hartsville  Aid  (Mrs. 
Nicolas)  volunteered  to  spend  a  week  near  the  hospital,  in  preparing 
dainties  for  the  very  sick,  and  acting  the  part  of  mothers,  in  various 
ways,  to  many  poor  creatures  whose  lives  have  not  been  spared  to  ack- 
nowledge their  kind  attentions.  And  oh,  how  many  'God  bless  you, 
ladies!'  'Thank  you,  ladies!'  etc.,  have  been  uttered  by  the  poor  sick 
and  wounded  men,  as  they  would  pass  through  the  wards  with  some- 
thing to  tempt  the  appetite  or  some  pleasant  drink  t(^  moisten  the 
fevered  lips,  and  the  tears  of  thankfulness  flowed  on  man_v  a  sun-burned 
cheek  in  appreciation  of  their  tender  sympathy.  We  have  also  visited 
Nicetown  Hospital,  and  assisted  the  Penn  Relief  in  getting  up  a 
Thanksgiving  dinner,  and  at  another  time  a  Thanksgiving  supper. 
Here,  too,  we  have  been  made  to  rejoice,  seeing  our  ladies  so  greatly 
appreciated  b\"  the  poor  stricken  ones  who  have  been  made  to  suffer, 
bv  a  rebellious  foe,  for  our  mother  country's  sake." 


Historical  Reminiscences  of  the  Cuttalossa  Creek  in  Solebury 
Township. 

BY  THADDEUS   S.    KENDERDINE,    NEWTON,    PA. 
(Cuttalossa  Valley  Meeting,  June,   15,   1918.) 

THE  Cuttalossa  is  a  small  stream,  not  more  than  three  miles 
long  from  its  source  in  the  western  part  of  Solebury  town- 
ship, to  w^iere  after  a  winding  course  it  enters  the  Delaware 
river  at  Lumberton,  about  half  way  between  Easton  and  Tren- 
ton, and  now  in  volumne  but  a  weak  stream,  though,  before  the 
deforestation  of  its  valley,  it  was  of  milling  capacity.  As  I  first 
knew  the  creek  nearly  four  score  years  ago  its  lower  course 
flowed  through  a  forest  primeval,  no  wagon  road  followed  its 
course,  although  there  was  an  old  one  laid  out  on  high  ground 
overlooking  the  stream  and  crossing  it  but  once.  Now  there  is  a 
road  through  the  valley  which  crosses  the  creek  five  times.  The 
creek  starts  from  two  springs  on  the  line  of  the  Street  road,  and 
meanders  along  the  margins  of  pleasant  meadows,  it  then  skirts 
a  piece  of  woodland  and  then  after  a  short  distance  of  open 
country,  it  dives  into  a  mile  of  second  growth  timber  whose 
ancestral  trees  shadowed  the  creek  all  the  way  to  the  Delaware. 
At  first  it  flows  northeasterly,  then  to  the  north  and  then  turns 
again  to  the  northeast  until  it  empties  into  the  Delaware  river. 
It  is  one  of  the  minor  streams  of  the  county,  a  score  of  others 
perhaps  exceeding  it  in  volume,  and  yet  there  was  enough  in  its 
connection,  human  and  scenic,  its  people,  mills,  trees,  shrubbery, 
ferns  and  flora  to  create  a  pamphlet  of  eighty-nine  pages  from 
that  gatherer  of  local  historic  matter,  William  J.  Buck.  As  to 
the  humanity  living  in  or  near  the  valley,  there  were  none  more 
noted  than  Capt.  Pike  and  his  son.  General  Zebulon  M.  Pike  (Dis- 
coverer of  Pike's  Peak),  and  the  poet,  John  G.  Whittier.  The 
names  of  this  trio  alone  should  make  the  Cuttalossa  a  stream  of 
personal  note.  Historian  Buck,  locally  an  alien,  has  done  more 
in  the  way  of  research  to  hunt  up  matters  relative  to  the  Cut- 
talossa Valley  than  all  its  residents  combined. 

The  spelling  of  the  name  of  the  creek  is  now  established  as  I 
have  given  it.     The  original   spelling  however  was   Quatalosse, 


142  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF   CUTTALOSSA  CREEK 

which  was  the  name  of  the  Armitage  gristmill,  as  stencilled  on 
the  grain  bags  belonging  to  Henry  Armitage,  who  owned  it  with- 
in my  recollection.  Skudalosa  was  another  name  following  that. 
Among  other  titles  found  in  old  deeds  it  was  called  Quetilassie 
and  Scuttlaushe.  but  both  Davis  and  Buck,  after  investigation, 
have  established  Cuttalossa  as  the  correct  spelling. 

The  first  gristmill  on  the  stream  was  built  by  Samuel  Armitage, 
who  came  from  Wakefield,  England,  in  1738,  and  settled  in 
Solebury  before  1747.  A  date  on  the  gable  end  of  the  mill,  1752, 
indicates  that  it  was  built  that  year.  A  few  years  later  a  saw- 
mill was  built,  and  by  1780  a  plaster  mill  was  also  in  operation. 
The  gristmill,  run  by  an  overshot  water  wheel,  remains  as  it  was 
170  years  ago,  except  for  an  addition  made  in  1823.  It  is  now 
owned  by  an  Armitage,  and  has  been  in  that  family  name,  except 
for  a  hiatus  of  forty  years  when  the  names  of  Good,  Hutchinson 
and  Fries  were  connected  with  its  ownership.  The  present  owner 
is  Amos  Armitage,  the  third  of  that  name  in  title,  who  bought 
the  property  about  1905.  Like  all  old  mills  of  the  kind,  its  busi- 
ness is  much  diminished,  but  when  there  is  water  enough  to 
operate,  the  old  wheel  still  plods  its  solemn  rounds  and  the 
rumbling  stones  go  their  whirling. 

In  1916,  when  on  a  visit  to  my  old  home,  I  stopped  at  the 
Armitage  mill,  whose  inside  I  had  not  seen  for  a  half  century. 
Business  was  slack  and  the  works  idle,  but  not  its  "dusty,"  for 
we  found  Amos  3d,  fixing  up  a  sawmill  (for  a  circular  saw)  for 
working  up  logs  suitable  for  its  size.  He  was  doing  all  the  work 
himself,  for  he  was  a  "Jack  of  all  trades,"  being  a  worker  in  both 
wood  and  iron.  He  had  hewn  the  log  carriage  out  of  one  piece 
of  timber  and  was  ripping  it  by  hand  in  two  parts,  like  the  old 
mode  before  the  days  of  sawmills.  Around  him  were  wooden 
cogwheels  and  pulleys,  showing  his  handiwork  and  confidence 
in  the  future  of  the  mill.  His  children  were  all  girls,  and  I 
could  not  look  upon  him  without  interest,  as  being  the  sole  male 
representative  of  the  Armitages  that  I  had  known  or  heard  of 
in  the  175  years  who  had  lived  and  died  along  the  waters  of 
the  Cuttalossa.  I  thought  there  must  have  been  some  sentiment 
in  his  nature,  else  he  would  not  have  left  his  ancestral  farm,  that 
of  his  grandfather,  Amos,  2nd,  to  cast  his  lot  with  this  old  mill. 
I  would  like  to  have  seen  the  old  mill  running,  as  I  had  in  the 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  143 

long  ago,  but  with  no  grist  to  grind  and  a  scarcity  of  water  I 
could  not  ask  Amos  to  leave  his  congenial  work  to  start  it  up 
for  my  pleasure.  Through  the  generations  of  Armitages,  Samuel. 
John,  Henry  and  Jesse,  the  old  mill  had  gone  on,  and  let  us  hope 
that  Amos  will  make  a  success  of  his  undertaking. 

The  first  gristmill  in  Solebury  township,  was  built  in  1707  at 
the  "Great  Spring,"  the  most  natural  place  to  start  one  because 
of  the  abundance  of  water,  and  with  no  danger  of  the  water- 
wheel  freezing,  for  with  full  volume  the  water  came  forth  at  a 
temperature  defying  ice.  Hither  came  farmers  from  up-country, 
where  as  yet  no  mills  had  been  built,  bringing  their  grists  of  rye, 
wheat  and  buckwheat,  by  cart  or  on  horseback  down  the  Sugan 
road,  the  first  highway  leading  north  from  that  section.  When 
the  Armitage  mill  was  erected  in  1752  on  that  highway,  it  great- 
ly interfered  with  the  trade  of  the  mill  at  Great  Spring.  John 
Armitage,  son  of  Samuel,  succeeded  him  in  the  conduct  of  the 
mill.  He  was  familiarly  known  as  "Batchelor  John,"  or  as 
"Uncle."  When  up-country  mills  were  built  the  Armitage  trade 
in  its  turn  was  interfered  with,  as  the  people  would  naturally  pat- 
ronize the  nearest  mill.  These  old-time  millers  would,  when  able, 
grind  the  grists  while  the  far-away  farmers  waited,  and  give 
them  their  dinners  at  noon  time,  for  such  was  the  hospitality  of 
those  good  old  times.  We  can  well  say  that  these  "dusties"  never 
dipped  the  toll  dish  but  once,  with  fear  that  the  boss  miller  or 
apprentice  might  forget  the  service.  Henry  was  an  elder  in  our 
Friends  Meeting,  and  I  have  seen  his  plain  hat  and  coat  dusted 
with  flour,  but  not  at  meeting. 

The  next  gristmill  was  built  at  the  mouth  of  the  Cuttalossa 
creek  some  time  before  1758  in  connection  with  a  sawmill,  but 
being  in  the  way  of  the  construction  of  the  canal,  about  1830, 
both  were  put  out  of  use  to  make  way  for  it.  To  replace  these 
a  second  set  of  mills  was  built  by  John  Gillingham,  grandfather 
of  the  late  Mayor  Ashbridge,  of  Philadelphia,  brother  of  Benja- 
min who  lived  and  died  in  Lahaska,  and  an  uncle,  I  believe,  to 
the  late  J.  Gillingham  Fell,  whose  father  was  William  Fell,  who 
married  a  daughter  of  John  Gillingham.  The  demolished  grist- 
mill was  in  its  time  of  historic  interest  in  connection  with  the 
death  of  Moses  Doane,  for  whose  capture  a  reward  was  oflfered. 
A  boy  coming  there  with  a  grist  of  wheat  told  the  miller  that 


144  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

the  Doanes  were  at  their  house  and  that  the  flour  was  badly 
wanted.  There  was  such  a  suggestion  from  this  that  the  miller 
promptly  complied,  and  when  the  grain  was  ground,  went  at  once 
to  where  a  public  sale  was  being  held,  nearby,  and  notifying  the 
assemblage  there,  a  posse  was  soon  created,  and  hastening  to  the 
Horsley  place,  on  Cabin  run  in  Bedminster  township,  whence  the 
boy  came,  and  where  the  Doanes  were  harbored.  One  of  the 
party  shot  the  leader  of  the  outlaws,  after  he  had  surrendered, 
which  was  considered  a  dishonorable  act,  the  rest  escaping  in 
the  confusion,  the  officer  of  the  law,  leading  the  posse,  Major 
Kennedy,  getting  killed  in  the  melee.  As  a  punishment  for  har- 
boring his  country's  enemies,  Horsley,  besides  being  jailed  at 
Newtown  for  six  months,  was  burned  in  the  hand ! 

John  E.  Kenderdine,  who  in  1833  had  bought  the  Lumberton 
property,  known  heretofore  from  the  names  of  the  Delaware  river 
ferry  owners,  Rose,  Kugler,  Hart  and  Painter,  but  latterly,  from 
the  frequent  visits  of  the  sheriff  as  "Hard  Times,"  along  with 
twenty  acres  of  land,  made  a  second  replacement  of  the  mills, 
one  on  each  side  of  the  creek.  It  is  here  worthy  of  mention  that 
the  purchaser,  being  a  practical  millwright,  had  gotten  out  the 
machinery  for  the  gristmill  the  winter  before  he  moved  to  Lum- 
berton from  his  Montgomery  county  home,  and  that  the  car- 
riage-way of  the  sawmill  was  partly  supplied  from  a  wooden 
endless  chain  which  had  been  used  for  a  tread-power,  on  which 
oxen  worked,  at  an  experimental  gristmill  established  in  one  end 
of  the  large  dwelling  house  in  which  he  lived,  but  which  was  a 
failure,  for  the  good  reason  that  the  motive  power  ate  up  all  the 
toll.  The  idea  for  this  method  of  propulsion  was  obtained  from 
early  western  settlers,  where  feed  was  cheap  and  economy  in 
machinery  necessary.  It  is  recorded  that  the  endless  chain  was 
the  first  to  inaugurate  the  more  practical  horse-powers  soon  to 
be  built  for  driving  threshing  machines.  It  was  curiously  con- 
structed, with  rollers  and  hinge  joints,  made  from  the  hardest 
wood  necessarily  strong  from  having  to  sustain  the  weight  of  two 
heavy  oxen.  I  well  remember  seeing  unusued  sections  of  the 
chain  lying  overhead  in  the  sawmill. 

The  gristmill  dam  formed  a  basin  for  logs  for  the  sawmill. 
I  have  seen  200,000  feet  of  them  floating  there  at  one  time.  To 
see  the  weeds  and  thicket-grown  waste  now  covering  the  site  of 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  145 

this  pond,  one  can  scarcely  realize  the  changed  conditions.  Later 
the  two  operations  were  separated,  the  sawmill  being  removed  to 
a  location  two  hundred  yards  further  up  the  stream,  and  on  the 
opposite  side  thereof.  The  new  and  head  race  dug  for  this  saw- 
mill has  gradually  over  the  past  forty  years,  filled  up,  and  the 
investment  has  become  lost. 

The  next  water-power  to  be  improved  along  the  Cuttalossa 
was  a  sawmill  built  in  1849  by  John  E.  Kenderdine,  about  one- 
third  of  a  mile  from  the  river.  The  place  was  called  Laurelton, 
so  named  on  account  of  the  rhododendrons  growing  in  the  woods 
at  that  place.  In  1852  a  floorboard  working  machine  was  added, 
which  theretofore  had  been  attached  to  the  gristmill  at  the  river 
and  run  by  means  of  a  shaft  spanning  the  creek.  Starting  this 
enterprise  involved  a  patent  on  the  "Woodward  planing  machine," 
a  late  invention,  which  with  swiftly  revolving  knives  worked  the 
surfaces  and  edges  of  parallel-sawn  boards.  For  supplying  the 
counties  of  Bucks  and  Hunterdon  (in  New  Jersey)  one  dollar 
per  thousand  feet  had  to  be  paid  to  the  holder  of  the  patent  right, 
one  George  B.  Sloat,  of  Philadelphia,  a  brother  to  Commodore 
Sloat,  of  the  United  States  Navy,  and  much  connected  with  the 
capture  of  Upper  California  at  the  time  of  the  Mexican  war. 
This  machinery  brought  out  the  enmity  of  neighboring  carpenters, 
who  claimed  that  it  was  robbing  them  of  their  work,  so  that  they 
threatened  a  boycott  by  influencing  their  patrons  to  buy  their 
lumber  of  rival  dealers.  A  day's  work  for  a  carpenter  in  work- 
ing and  laying  flooring  was  one  hundred  superficial  feet,  while  a 
machine  at  that  time  would  plane,  tongue  and  groove  three  thou- 
sand. Much  of  this  hand  work  was  done  in  the  winter  time 
when  cheap  apprentice  labor  could  be  used,  so  it  was  no  wonder 
the  boss  carpenters  kicked  at  an  innovation  which  they  claimed 
took  the  bread  from  the  mouths  of  their  wives  and  children. 
But  their  employers  had  something  to  say  to  this,  and  such  hand 
work  entirely  ceased.  This  investment  of  my  father's,  how- 
ever, turned  out  a  poor  one,  for  despite  the  patent  protection, 
flooring  was  placed  in  the  cities  and  lumber  regions  by  improved 
machinery  which  could  produce  three  times  as  fast  as  he  could, 
and  which  was  retailed  by  local  dealers  despite  the  patent. 

In  1854  a  sash  and  door  factory  was  added  to  the  flooring  mill, 
which  further  annoyed  the  boss  carpenters,  as  more  robbing  them 


146  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK 

of  their  work,  but  the  outcome  was  the  same  as  from  the  flooring 
machine ;  one  of  these  kickers  even  starting  a  rival  factory  a  mile 
and  a  half  away,  which  much  interfered  with  our  business.  But 
there  was  lots  of  work  in  those  times  in  the  late  fifties  for  farmers 
were  doing  well,  building  anew  on  their  farms,  or  erecting  re- 
tiring homes  in  nearby  villages  where  they  might  live  with  their 
families  comfortably  to  the  end  of  their  days.  As  many  as  a 
dozen  hands  were  employed  in  and  around  our  factory  making 
inside  housework,  so  there  was  quite  a  stir  in  the  now  deserted 
valley  of  the  Cuttalossa.  A  mill  for  grinding  bones  was  added  in 
1864,  and  two  years  later  machinery  was  put  in  for  making  mixed 
fertilizers,  taking  the  room  of  the  disused  sawmill,  so  for  many 
years  there  was  plenty  of  business  around  this  section. 

In  1854  Charles  P.  Large  and  Isaac  Corson  built  another  saw- 
mill, locating  it  about  a  mile  further  up  the  stream,  in  the  heart 
of  the  wilderness,  but  which  the  wagon  road  had  opened  up.  In 
the  nearby  woods  they  cut  chestnut  and  oak  timber  which  they 
sawed  into  railroad  ties  for  the  branch  road  built  from  Lansdale 
to  Doylestown,  a  branch  of  the  North  Penn  (now  Reading) 
railroad.  These  ties  were  hauled  a  distance  of  nine  miles  with 
an  ox  team  by  George,  son  of  Theodore  Dudbridge,  who  had 
lately  moved  into  the  neighborhood,  one  of  the  few  men  recon- 
ciled to  this  slow  travel.  One  round  trip  was  considered  a  day's 
work.  For  twenty  years  thereafter  much  hard  wood  was  sawed 
here  from  logs  cut  from  far  and  near,  the  rivings  shipped  to 
Atlantic  coast  cities  and  even  as  far  as  California.  About  1873 
the  mill  was  bought  by  Cephas  Worthington  who  added  a  rake 
and  handle  factory  thereto,  but  his  venture  failed  financially. 
Later  purchasers  were  Robert  Lear  and  the  Kemble  Brothers 
from  the  Lumberton  quarries,  one  brother,  William  H.  Kemble 
of  Philadelphia,  dying,  his  brother  allowed  the  property  to  stand 
idle,  until  a  violent  flood,  coming  in  1885,  so  thoroughly  destroyed 
both  dam  and  mill  that  they  were  never  rebuilt.  The  sawyer's 
home  deserted,  its  doors  open  and  windows  all  broken,  would 
have  been  a  night  lodging  place  for  tramps,  did  such  gentry  so 
far  forget  themselves  as  to  wander  into  this  wilderness.  In  like 
manner  the  nearby  tenant  house,  where  lived  for  years  a  run- 
away slave  called  "Black  Charley"  and  his  wife  or  woman, 
"Black  Maria."     Charley  always  kept  an  axe  on  hand  for  brain- 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  147 

ing  his  late  owner  should  he  come  to  take  him  from  his  wilder- 
ness home.  Maria  was  a  wicked  looking  woman,  and  would 
have  willingly  helped  her  man  in  his  work.  With  desolation  all 
around  the  once  humanity  all  dead,  I  wonder  if  its  ghosts,  "re- 
visiting the  pale  glimpses  of  the  moon,"  ever  in  their  walks 
abroad  startle  the  owls  and  bats  from  their  haunts. 

After  reading  my  description  of  the  improvements  once  along 
the  Cuttalossa,  no  one  having  pathos  of  sympathy  can  wonder  at 
my  feelings  when  seeing  the  solitude  wrought  by  time  and  changed 
conditions  of  business  there.  Where  turned  the  various  mills,  with 
their  accessories,  not  only  all  is  silence,  but  the  buildings  which 
gave  forth  their  noises  are,  with  one  exception,  so  gone  that 
nothing  but  bare  walls  are  seen  or  well  nigh  hidden  by  bushes 
and  tree  growths,  where  once  disturbed  nature  is  having  her  re- 
venges. Half  of  my  long  life  was  passed  among  these  scenes, 
where  much  of  the  time  conditions  were  at  their  liveliest,  and 
where  in  my  early  days  all  with  a  wilderness,  whose  reclamation 
was  to  be  so  wonderful ;  so  it  is  not  strange  that  when  I  visit  these 
deserted  places  that  I  experience  sickness  of  heart.  Along  the 
valley  road,  once  so  lively  with  carriage  and  business  travel,  one 
now  scarcely  sees  a  pleasure  vehicle  or  heavy  wagon,  while  road- 
side vegetation  is  encroaching  more  and  more  on  the  right-of- 
way.  This  road,  the  easiest  one  inland  from  the  river  from  be- 
low Yardley  to  Easton,  was  allowed  from  the  courts  with  diffi- 
culty, as  so  few  people  were  interested  besides  my  father,  and 
the  township  taxpayers  objecting  through  remonstrances;  even 
some  of  the  original  petitioners  recanting.  My  father  was  par- 
ticularly interested  in  having  this  road  laid  out,  because  of  the 
roundabout  route  and  the  hills  which  his  customers  had  to  take 
to  haul  their  lumber  from  the  river,  and  he  was  greatly  pleased 
when  he  had  accomplished  his  purpose. 

THE   VILLAGE   OF   LUMBERTON. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  mills  built  along  the  Cuttalossa  and  their 
present  abandoned  and  dilapidated  condition,  but  have  said 
nothing  about  the  little  village  of  Lumberton  at  its  mouth.  There 
was  a  settlement  there  before  1758,  for  in  that  year  William  Skel- 
ton  built  a  gristmill,  and  by  1770  a  sawmill  was  added,  which 
in  1771  was  owned  by  John  Kugler.     The  gristmill  was  rebuilt 


148  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK 

in  1781,  when  on  account  of  Kugler  getting  into  trouble  for  his 
disloyalty,  and  to  avoid  his  property  from  being  confiscated  he 
sold  it  to  George  Warne.  Kugler  was  however  jailed  at  New- 
town. His  wife,  who  seemed  to  have  been  equally  guilty  was 
also  arrested  and  journeyed  with  him  to  the  county-seat.  George 
Warne  conveyed  the  property  to  John  Hart,  who  appears  to  have 
lived  there,  for  during  the  Revolutionary  War  he  was  ferryman. 
The  tract  after  being  increased  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  acres 
by  purchase  of  adjoining  lands,  was  sold  in  1795  to  Jacob  Painter 
and  Reuben  Thorne.  Painter  appears  to  have  run  the  ferry  in 
1793,  when  there  was  a  "Painter's  Ferry  road."  As  late  as  1818 
there  was  a  sign  post  due  northwest  of  Center  Hill  stating  the 
way  and  distance  to  the  ferry.  This  crossing  must  have  been 
established  about  the  time,  or  before  John  Watson  laid  out  the 
road  to  Center  Hill,  or  about  1756.  Some  have  wondered  why 
the  ferry  was  not  established  opposite  Lumberville,  where  there 
was  a  better  road  to  country  back  of  the  river,  but  Bull's  island 
was  in  the  way  there,  involving  two  ferriages,  on  account  of  an 
intervening  branch  of  the  river.  Doubtless  there  was  a  hotel  at 
Lumberton  shortly  after  the  Watson  road  was  laid  out,  for  this 
highway  was  mainly  for  the  convenience  of  Jersey  farmers -going 
to  Philadelphia.    There  was  a  store  and  lumber  yard  by  1800. 

In  1833  John  E.  Kenderdine,  from  Horsham,  Montgomery 
county,  who  was  made  acquainted  with  this  business  nook  on  the 
Delaware  shore  from  crossing  the  ferry  at  various  times  on  his 
visits  to  his  future  wife,  Martha  Quinby,  who  lived  with  her  par- 
ents, James  and  Margaret,  on  a  large  plantation  on  the  Jersey  hills 
overlooking  what  was  to  be  Lumberton,  and  seeing  its  induce- 
ments, purchased  the  place.  The  then  good  water  power  of  the 
Cuttalossa,  combined  with  the  supply  of  saw  timber  annually 
floating  down  the  Delaware  from  its  headwaters  in  New  York 
and  northern  Pennsylvania,  together  with  the  cheapness  of  the 
property,  were  beckonings  not  easily  avoided.  The  lately  finished 
canal  furnishing  transportation  for  the  benefit  of  the  merchant 
mill  he  proposed  building,  was  another  important  factor  in  the 
buying  of  the  place,  so,  in  the  named  year,  he  bought  of  Joseph 
Hough,  administrator  to  the  estate  of  Thomas  Little,  lately  de- 
ceased, for  $1600  a  tract  of  twenty  acres,  on  which  were  the  re- 
mains of  a  sawmill  and  gristmill,  a  hotel  and  two  dwelling  houses, 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK  149 

one  of  them  "the  Old  Red  House,"  in  which  once  Hved  the  two 
Pikes — Captain  Zebulon,  the  Revolutionary  soldier,  and  his  son, 
General  Zebulon  Montgomery  Pike,  also  a  soldier,  as  well  as  a 
noted  explorer ;  the  latter  to  be  killed  in  our  last  war  with  England 
in  a  Canadian  expedition,  and  who,  when  quite  a  lad,  attended  the 
Center  Hill  school  two  miles  away.  One  of  these  is  yet  standing, 
a  double  dwelling,  an  end  of  which  was  the  Camel  tavern.  The 
hotel  end  has  sentimental  associations  with  me,  for  here  my  par- 
ents first  lived  when  coming  to  Bucks  county,  where  I  com- 
menced housekeeping  in  1863,  and  where  two  of  our  children 
were  born ;  and  now  the  whole  building  is  a  pitiful  wreck.  A  two- 
storied  veranda  once  fronted  it,  which  was  torn  down  piecemeal 
by  quarrymen  tenants  and  burned  for  firewood. 

The  "House  on  the  Hill,"  the  first  new  residence  built  in  the 
new-named  village,  was  erected  in  1837  and  here  John  E.  Kinder- 
dine  lived  until  1855,  when  he  moved  to  the  newly  built  "Laurel- 
ton  House"  up  the  creek,  and  where  he  lived  until  his  death  in 
1868.  In  1869  the  writer  bought  that  property  and  lived  there 
till  the  fall  of  1874,  when  he  sold  it  and  moved  to  Ambler,  bidding 
a  final  adieu  to  the  valley  of  the  Cuttalossa.  The  house  changing 
hands  several  times,  it  was  finally  burned  down  about  1903,  and 
the  charred  and  partially  wrecked  walls  for  several  years  re- 
mained a  blot  on  the  landscape.  During  this  time  it  was  sold 
three  times  as  junk,  the  knocked-down  price  being  once  but  $70, 
for  what  had  cost  as  a  whole  $3000.  The  last  owner  razed  the 
upper  walls  till  they  were  shedshaped,  pitching  one  way  and  to- 
wards the  road,  till  the  picturesque  house  of  six  gables,  christened 
the  "Laurelton"  by  my  brother  Robert,  was  bungled  to  a  bunga- 
low. On  the  erection  of  this  house,  in  1855,  when  the  walls  were 
a  little  above  the  second  floor,  Robert  and  I  composed  some 
poetry,  and  with  two  newspapers  made  up  a  cornerstone  filler,  in- 
serted it  in  a  wooden  box  and  had  this  walled  in.  I  never  ex- 
pected to  see  the  interned  box  again,  but  through  some  remarkable 
contingencies  the  papers  came  into  my  possession,  some  of  them 
in  tolerable  good  condition.  My  brother's  poem,  a  remarkable 
production  for  one  about  fifteen  years  of  age,  was  printed  in  a 
local  paper  and  afterwards  came  out  in  book  form. 

The  four  families  of  Armitages  who  lived  in  the  section  of  the 
Cuttalossa  around  the  upper  water  power  were  headed  by  Samuel, 


150  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

John,  Henry  and  Amos,  all  of  whom  in  their  generations  have 
long  since  passed  away,  and  later  their  twenty-five  children,  and, 
as  before  mentioned,  but  one  male  member  of  the  name  left,  the 
last,  Amos,  who  owns  the  ancestral  mill. 

Tames,  one  of  John  Armitage's  sons,  married  my  aunt,  Mary 
Quinby,  and  died  leaving  two  sons,  James  and  Charles,  the  first 
aged  one  year,  the  last  three  years.  James  died  at  sixteen,  while 
his  brother  lived  to  be  old  enough  to  die  for  his  country  in  the 
Civil  War.  Charles  was  a  practicing  lawyer  at  Phoenixville,  when 
the  call  to  arms  came,  he  enlisted  in  Company  G,  First  Pennsyl- 
vania Reserves.  A  writer  of  fiction,  a  ready  debater  and  an  ac- 
complished orator,  the  latter  talent  used  at  war  meetings  to  urge 
recruiting,  and,  best  of  all,  setting  the  example  himself,  so  unlike 
the  many  "go-boys"  talkers,  instead  of  being  "come-boys,"  who 
failed  to  fight  as  they  spoke.  I  shall  never  forget  his  address 
at  a  meeting  called  at  my  home  town  immediately  after  the 
mobbing  and  death  of  the  Massachusetts  troops  in  Baltimore  while 
on  their  way  for  the  defence  of  Washington.  It  was  for  the  en- 
listment of  volunteers  for  the  President's  first  call,  and  was  full 
of  persuasive  eloquence  for  recruits,  and  at  the  same  time  of  con- 
sideration for  those  who  would  have  to  make  sacrifices  to  enlist. 
Ex-Governor  Pennypacker  who  was  a  fellow  townsman  of  Ar- 
mitage  after  he  set  up  legal  practice  at  Phoenixville,  was  pleased 
to  speak  of  him  in  his  memoirs  as  "a  slouchy,  ill-trained  man, 
ignorant  and  good-natured,"  with  the  saving  clause  of  "being  a 
great  favorite  and  having  been  killed  in  action" — a  mixed  de- 
scription, worthy  of  so  mixed  a  character  as  was  Pennypacker. 
Charles  Armitage  was  no  scholar  as  the  word  goes,  but  he  was  a 
great  reader,  his  inclination  being  for  military  history,  particular- 
ly of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  the  plans  of  which  battles  he  would 
draw  on  his  slate.  In  local  debating  societies  he  was  eminent  as 
a  reasoner,  and  in  the  Lincoln  campaign  did  good  service  as  a 
political  orator.  At  his  new  home  he  wrote  fictional  tales  for  the 
Phoenixville  Independent.  He  was  not  killed  in  action  but  died 
from  exhaustion  after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  while  on  Mead's 
pursuit  of  Lee,  and  was  buried  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  Po- 
tomac. He  was  a  good  soldier  with  military  bearing,  as  I  learned 
from  one  of  his  commanding  officers.  In  one  of  the  battles  be- 
fore Richmond  he  commanded  his  company.    As  one  of  the  three 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  151 

dwellers  of  the  Cuttalossa  valley  who  gave  up  their  lives  for 
their  country,  he  is  worthy  of  local  mention.  The  other  two  were 
Robert  Kenderdine  and  Thaddeus  Paxson. 

The  Cuttalossa  skirted  or  divided  the  lands  of  the  Armitages, 
going  by  that  of  Amos,  and  dividing  those  of  Henry,  John  and 
Samuel.  Much  of  these  properties  consisted  of  a  primeval  forest, 
dank  and  dark,  the  creek  taking  its  lonely  way  under  the  shadow- 
ing trees  until  1852,  when  the  public  road  was  built. 

John  G.  Whittier,  the  Amesbury  poet,  passed  his  summer  va- 
cations on  the  Healy  farm  between  1837  and  1840,  and  the  farm- 
house has  since  been  referred  to  as  the  "Whittier  House. "^  While 
living  there  he  wrote  several  of  his  published  poems.  The  back 
field  of  the  Healy  farm  overlooks  the  Cuttalossa  valley  which  is 
thus  referred  to  in  a  letter  from  him  to  William  J.  Buck  in  1873. 

"I  well  remember  the  little  river,  its  woodlands  and  meadows, 
and  the  junction  of  the  Cuttalossa  with  the  Delaware,"  showing 
that  Whittier,  in  his  ramblings,  must  have  honored  Lumberton 
with  his  visits.  While  at  his  literary  work,  at  the  home  of  Joseph 
Healy,  the  poet,  for  exercise,  between  times  either  worked  in  the 
garden  or  rambled  over  the  country. 

Down  stream  from  the  Armitage  holdings  came  the  Paxson 
tract,  extending  in  two  ownerships  to  the  river,  in  my  time  those 
of  Moses  and  Howard,  wherein  there  were  two  hundred  acres  of 
woods,  backed  by  fertile  farm  lands.  These  were  descendants  of 
Henry  Paxson,  to  whom  the  sons  of  William  Penn  deeded  the 
land,  and  who  came  from  England  in  1682,  and  who  at  once  ac- 
quired five  hundred  acres  and  afterwards  more  in  another  sec- 
tion. In  my  recollection  Moses  Paxson,  or  rather  his  estate, 
owned  the  first  section  below  the  Armitages',  his  widow,  "Aunt 
Salley,"  living  on  the  homestead,  and  renting  the  farm.  The 
woodland,  amounting  to  near  one  hundred  acres,  was  a  part  of  a 
forest  three  miles  by  a  half  mile  in  places  in  area,  extending  along 
the  river  hills  from  above  Center  Bridge  to  below  Lumberville. 
In  my  memory  this  wilderness  was  a  section  for  fishing,  hunting 
game  and  lost  cows — my  boyhood  experience  going  back  to  all 
these — fishing,  carrying  game  bag  for  my  Nimrod  brother  and 

1  At  the  conclusion  of  the  Cuttalossa  Valley  Meeting,  Mr.  Daniel  Garber, 
the  noted  painter,  who  has  a  studio  in  the  valley  near  where  the  meeting 
was  held,  presented  to  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society  a  large  painting 
of  the  Healy-W^hittier  house,  which  now  hangs  on  the  walls  of  the  museum 
at  Doylestown. 


152  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK 

seeking  wandering  members  of  our  little  dairy,  mainly  confined 
to  the  Cuttalossa  valley.  In  hunting  stock,  particularly  at  night- 
fall, I  found  the  job  lonely  and  mixed  with  some  terror,  for 
imagination  would  run  wild  in  conceiving  strange  sounds  and 
moving  objects.  The  timber  belonging  to  the  estate  of  Moses 
Paxson  was  cut  off  after  the  widow's  death,  my  father  buying 
part  and  exchanging  much  of  the  wood  thereon  for  land  cut  ofif 
by  other  purchasers.  This  he  cleared,  and  it  being  added  to  his 
original  twenty  acres  of  tillable  land,  made  quite  a  farm,  some 
sixty  acres  in  all,  with  the  mill  property  on  the  river  side.  On 
the  lower  edge  of  the  Moses  Paxson  tract  he  built  the  Laurelton 
mills  and  the  dwelling  house  in  which  he  ended  his  days,  which  I 
afterwards  owned.  The  highlands  and  leveler  part  of  the  Paxson 
purchase  made  six  fields  in  a  single  row,  strung  along  paralleling 
the  creek,  the  far  field  being  a  good  half  mile  from  the  barn,  and 
anything  but  an  economical  arrangement  for  farming  purposes. 
My  school  vacations,  when  a  boy  of  from  thirteen  to  sixteen,  in- 
stead of  idling  my  time  away,  as  is  too  often  the  case  now  in 
school  interludes,  were  passed  in  burning  brush,  picking  stones 
and,  when  the  time  came,  sprouting  stumps,  year  after  year  on 
the  forty  acres  we  cleared.  While  this  work  was  disagreeable,  it 
was  a  good  experience  for  me  in  my  after  life,  so  that  I  had  no 
regrets. 

The  twenty  acres  my  father  bought  in  1833  was  a  part  of  a 
two  hundred-acre  tract  which  William  Penn's  heirs  conveyed  to 
John  and  Eleanor  Hough  on  Fifth  Month  28th,  1741.  Stoflfel 
Rose  was  the  next  purchaser,  and  after  him  came  his  son  John, 
who  established  afterwards  the  ferry,  subsequently  Painter's,  and 
under  other  titles  conforming  to  riparian  ownership.  Lumberton 
was  on  the  north  corner  of  the  Rose  tract,  and  so  near  that  of 
Paxson's  that  rights  of  way  had  to  be  purchased  of  subsequent 
owners  of  the  land  for  races  and  dams  for  the  Lumberton  mills, 
perpetuity,  and  which  are  now  of  no  value  on  account  of  the 
wreck  of  business.  The  remains  of  the  old  mills  were  removed 
in  1834,  and  the  same  year  a  new  gristmill  was  built  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  creek,  and  another  sawmill  below  the  breast 
of  its  dam.  From  the  headrace  of  the  sawmill  a  forebay  crossed 
the  roadway  twenty-four  feet  above  it,  which  was  a  conspicuous 
sight.     The  huge  water  wheel  slowly  and  steadily  revolving  as  a 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  153 

synonym  of  power,  and  its  feeder,  straddling  the  highway  on  its 
long  legs,  was  a  sight  I  remember  as  impressive  in  my  youthful 
days. 

The  name  "Hard  Times,"  which  the  place  once  had,  and  which 
was  difficult  to  get  rid  of  when  it  became  prosperous,  I  well  re- 
member— a  term  uncomplimentary  to  the  landlord,  who  was  too 
much  of  a  "close-wad"  to  give  the  renter  a  sign ;  so  the  tenant, 
to  shame  him,  got  an  old  shutter,  and,  with  tar  for  paint  and  a 
stick  for  a  brush,  write  on  the  rude  sign  "Hard  Times."  This 
brought  a  respectable  sign  from  the  landlord,  which  I  remember 
to  have  seen  standing  in  front  of  the  hotel  until  1842.  when  the 
hotel  was  given  up.  The  sign,  on  which  was  painted  a  camel, 
and  which  afterwards  gave  the  name  to  the  tavern,  was  for  years 
stored  in  the  disused  hay  mow  of  its  stable,  in  which,  when  play- 
ing there,  when  quite  a  small  boy,  I  admired  as  a  w^ork  of  art. 
This  sign  should  have  been  saved,  but  it  doubtless  went  into 
kindling  wood,  as  afterwards  did  the  two-storied  veranda  of 
the  hotel.  The  stable  was  torn  down  in  1865.  On  one  of  its 
cornerstones  were  the  initials  "W.  S."  with  date  1765,  standing 
for  William  Skelton,  a  former  owner.  I  had  this  walled-in  in 
the  nearby  kitchen  end  of  the  double  house,  where  it  yet  can  be 
seen  unless  whitewashed  or  plastered  over. 

Before  the  1841  freshet  the  ferrymen,  save  one,  lived  on  the 
Pennsylvania  side  of  the  river.  The  exception  was  Elias  Johnson, 
who  kept  a  tavern  on  the  Jersey  side,  but  which  was  washed 
away  in  the  same  flood,  it  being  near  the  shore.  The  Lombardy 
poplars  in  front  of  it  remained  there  for  years.  Although  but 
little  over  five  years  old,  I  remember  seeing  my  father,  with 
"cupped"  hands,  shouting  across  the  river  to  the  ferryman: 
"Hello,  the  boat,"  a  call  which,  from  the  distance,  required  fre- 
quent repetition.  A  new  hotel  was  built  further  back  along  the 
line  of  the  river  road,  and  the  canal,  or  "feeder"  bridge,  which 
had  been  washed  away,  rebuilt,  but  this  going  in  the  1846  flood, 
the  ferry  was  abandoned.  Under  present  conditions  the  ferry 
holders  on  each  side  of  the  river  would  have  had  to  have  been 
remunerated  from  the  non-rebuilding  of  the  bridge  which  had 
spliced  out  the  ferry  of  near  a  century  of  standing,  as  well  as  the 
river  landing,  but  Johnson  having  been  satisfied  and  my  father 
not  insisting  on  his  rights,  for  the  Lumberton  end  of  the  ferry 


154  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

went  with  his  purchase,  the  crossing,  which  had  so  long  been 
deemed  a  necessity,  was  never-more  made  by  anything  larger  than 
a  row  boat. 

The  year  before  the  1841  freshet  Kenderdine  &  Thomas  estab- 
lished a  branch  kmiber  yard  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river, 
with  Elias  Johnson  as  tender,  and  there  was  $3,000  worth  of 
stock  seasoned  and  ready  to  sell  when  the  flood  came  and  all  was 
washed  away,  the  owners  seeing  pile  after  pile  floating  ofif,  power- 
less to  save  it.  Such  were  the  prospects  of  the  firm  that  it  had 
at  much  expense  refitted  a  disused  sawmill  on  Eagle  Island,  a 
mile  below,  to  help  out  the  local  mill  at  Lumberton.  The  first 
log  was  on  the  carriage  ready  for  sawing,  but  when  the  next 
morning  came,  log,  sawmill  and  the  sawyer's  house  and  garden 
had  gone  down  the  Delaware,  along  with  the  branch  lumber 
yard  on  the  Jersey  side.  These  subsidiaries  were  never  reestab- 
lished. 

CUTTALOSSA  INDIANS. 

Beyond  tradition  and  what  comes  from  Buck's  history,  I  know 
little  concerning  the  Indians  of  the  Cuttalossa,  as  I  was  too  young 
to  get  in  touch  even  with  the  last  of  them.  There  was  what  was 
known  as  an  "Indian  town,"  mentioned  in  transfers  of  land  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  particularly  concerning  the  Beaks  tract 
in  1705,  with  further  allusions  back  to  1701.  Of  course  this 
"town"  was  nothing  more  than  a  collection  of  wigwams  or  huts 
without  alignments  on  streets  or  alleys,  but  it  was  a  settlement. 
A  tradition  from  the  early  Armitages  was  that  this  was  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  ancestral  mill-dam,  where  there  was  a  fertile 
meadow,  substantiated  by  the  finding  of  various  relics  in  more 
recent  times,  of  arrow  heads  and  the  like,  and  as  late  as  1885 
Llewellyn  Fries,  who  then  owned  the  property,  found  a  stone  axe 
and  a  last  used  for  shaping  moccasins  on. 

I  well  remember  the  tradition  of  the  lost  Indian  child,  and  who 
was  afterwards  found  drowned  in  a  pool  at  Indian  Rock,  at  the 
head  of  the  sawmill  dam,  below  Laureltown.  It  was  supposed 
that  the  child  fell  from  the  rock.  This  tragedy  and  the  search 
and  mourning  for  the  lost  child  by  the  Indian  mother  was  made 
into  a  poem  by  the  late  Watson  Kenderdine  and  is  published  in 
Buck's  History  of  the  Cuttalossa. 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF   CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  155 

On  an  elevation  overlooking  the  Delaware  was  what  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  grave  of  an  Indian  chief,  from  the  prominence 
given  it  by  a  cairn  of  stone  eighteen  inches  high  placed  over  it. 
In  1845  some  of  the  neighbors  of  a  ghoulish,  curious  or  historic 
nature  dug  for  the  bones  of  the  aborigine,  but  discontinued  the 
search,  either  from  finding  a  lengthwise  buried  log  in  the  way, 
as  one  story  went,  or  mayhap  in  fear  of  the  rising  of  the  Indian's 
ghost.  There  were  several  other  and  lower  heaps  of  stones 
around,  showing  that  there  had  been  a  cemetery  there. 

The  last  of  the  Indians  known  along  the  Cuttalossa  were  in 
three  individual  instances.  The  first  was  Isaiah,  no  surname,  who 
was  remembered  by  Silas  Preston,  of  Plumstead,  in  1780,  going 
on  his  way  to  the  Cuttalossa  with  a  bow  and  arrow  for  shooting 
trout,  showing  that  that  stream  was  once  such  a  preserve ;  in  fact 
the  historian,  Buck,  in  1873,  saw  miniature  trout  in  the  springs 
heading  its  waters.  The  two  other  Indians  were  of  a  much  more 
recent  date.  One  was  an  old  fellow^  named  Tuckamony ;  the  other 
his  daughter  Peg.  The  latter,  as  was  her  father,  was  an  expert 
basket-maker,  and  the  late  Joseph  D.  Armitage  tells  of  her  mak- 
ing him  a  nice  dinner  basket  for  school  use  of  red  and  blue 
splints,  the  material  for  which  she  was  allowed  to  freely  gather 
from  suitable  trees  in  the  adjacent  woods  in  readiness  for  dyeing 
and  weaving,  she  being  rewarded  for  the  present  with  'possum  and 
snapping  turtle  meat  he  had  caught,  and  which  Peg  pronounces 
"much  good."  When  her  father  died  she  took  the  place  of  the 
last  of  the  Mohicans,  or  rather  the  Lenni  Lenapes.  W.  J.  Buck  re- 
members Tuckamony  coming  to  his  father's  store  bringing  baskets 
to  trade  for  goods.  The  daughter  left  about  1830  for  the  happy 
hunting  grounds.  Where  was  the  aboriginal  hereafter,  or  its 
basket-making  regions,  if  there  was  such  a  locality,  where  in 
spirit  she  would  have  "much  good"  enjoyment  of  'possum  and 
snapper.  There  was  another  Indian  name  Nutimus,  but  he  only 
came  as  a  doctor  for  snake  bites  on  emergencies  from  his  home 
in  Nockamixon,  and  is  only  mentioned  as  saving  the  life  of  Wil- 
liam Satterthwaite,  the  poet,  of  the  Cuttalossa  region,  who  is 
elsewhere  mentioned.  The  biter  was  a  rattlesnake,  but  whether 
the  remedy  of  Nutimus  was  of  the  Arizona  kind,  is  not  stated, 
as  the  poet's  wife  once  tried  to  poison  him,  the   Indian's  skill 


156  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK 

might  have  come  in  play  at  another  time,  but  it  is  doubtful  from 
his  marital  experience,  if  Satterthwaite  cared  to  live. 

It  is  hard  telling  what  became  of  the  main  body  of  Indians. 
In  their  intercourse  with  the  whites  there  seems  to  have  been 
none  of  the  combative  disposition  manifested  by  them  towards 
other  colonies.  In  eastern  Pennsylvania  the  kindly  spirit  shown 
by  Penn  towards  the  Red  Man  was  so  reciprocated  that  there 
was  no  clashing  between  the  two  races,  and  after  receiving  pay- 
ment for  their  lands  the  Indians  seem  to  have  folded  their  wig- 
wams like  the  Arabs  their  tents,  to  paraphrase,  and  quietly  gone 
their  way,  leaving  the  few  isolated  cases  mentioned,  who  one  by 
one  pathetically  died  off. 

DIFFERENT  BUSINESS   IN   LUMBERTON. 

Concerning  the  different  businesses  previous  to  the  final  slump 
in  trade  at  Lumberton,  there  were  a  sawmill  and  gristmill  there 
before  the  Revolution,  as  stated,  and  doubtless  a  store  and  tavern, 
as  there  was  an  important  ferry  after  the  highway  was  laid  out 
at  the  York  road.  The  mills  were  then  run  by  John  Kugler,  as 
has  been  mentioned,  or  until  1780,  after  which  time  he  was  jailed 
for  disloyalty.  From  1780  till  1833,  different  people  undertook 
to  carry  on  business  there,  the  John  Gillingham  spoken  of  being 
the  most  prominent.  He  bought  mills,  lumber  yard,  hotel  and 
farm  in  1816,  but  by  1819  the  sheriff  came  along  and  sold  the 
entire  property  to  Jeremiah  King,  from  whose  heirs  it  was  trans- 
ferred to  his  son-in-law,  Thomas  Little,  whose  widow  I  well  re- 
member living  in  Lumberville.  Between  1794  and  1819  the  place 
had  been  thrice  sold  under  the  sheriff's  hammer,  thus  for  twenty- 
five  years  there  had  been  frequent  sellings  out  by  the  courts,  until 
the  name  of  "Hard  Times,"  got  to  be  quite  appropriate. 

When  John  E.  Kenderdine  took  possession  of  the  place  in  1833 
a  great  change  came  over  the  prospects  of  Lumberton,  the  new 
sawmill  and  gristmill  and  lately  opened  canal  giving  great  im- 
petus to  them.  Renting  the  gristmill  to  Lukens  Thomas,  who  had 
followed  him  up  from  Horsham  he  took  John  D.  and  William 
Balderston,  of  Solebury,  into  partnership  under  the  title  of"  Ken- 
derdine, Balderston  &  Co.,"  as  dealers  in  lumber,  and  sawyers 
of  pine  and  hemlock  logs  drawn  from  rafts  in  the  river.  About 
1840    the    Balderstons    withdrew    from    the    company,    Lukens 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  157 

Thomas  taking  their  places,  he  having  given  up  the  gristmill  to 
Isaiah  and  James  Quinby,  brothers-in-law  to  John  E.  Kenderdine. 
In  1842  Lukens  Thomas  took  over  the  lumber  establishment  him- 
self, keeping  it  till  1846,  when  he  had  bought  from  the  estate  of 
William  Dil worth,  an  opposition  yard,  and  much  to  the  chagrin 
of  his  former  partner.  His  place  was  taken  by  William 
Webster,  who  also  came  from  Horsham,  and  James  Quinby,  who 
had  left  the  gristmill  to  join  him,  the  firm  name  being  Quinby  & 
Webster,  Isaiah  Quinby  assuming  charge  of  the  mill.  The  firm 
did  not  last  a  year,  Webster  going  to  another  opposition  lumber 
yard  in  New  Hope,  occasioning  further  chagrin  in  the  mind  of 
his  predecessor,  John  E.  Kinderdine,  he  taking  the  place  of  Web- 
ster. Quinby,  also,  soon  got  weary  of  the  business,  and  went  on 
the  sawmill,  John  E.  Kenderdine  again  taking  charge  of  the  lum- 
ber business,  which  was  until  1853,  wdien  he  took  Morris  L.  Fell, 
from  Buckingham,  in  partnership,  run  under  the  name  of  Kender- 
dine &  Fell.  In  another  year  Anthony  Margerum,  also  from 
Horsham,  took  the  senior  partner's  place,  under  the  title  of  Fell  & 
Margerum,  adding  contract  building  to  the  other  extensive  busi- 
ness in  lumber  and  factory  work  (as  wood  working  machinery  had 
been  installed  at  Laurelton).  This  firm  dissolved  in  1860,  when  John 
E.  Kinderdine  again  took  over  the  business,  keeping  it  till  1865, 
when  it  reverted  to  his  sons,  Watson  and  Thaddeus  S.,  under  the 
title  of  Kendernine  Brothers.  For  nearly  ten  years  they  had 
the  lumber  and  coal  yard,  sawmill  and  door  and  sash  factory  and 
fertilizer  works  just  started,  purchasing  the  Laurelton  section 
after  the  death  of  their  father  in  1869,  and  carrying  on  that  part 
till  the  fall  of  1874,  when  the  firm  dissolved.  The  senior  member 
buying  the  place  and  carrying  on  the  business  alone  until  1891. 
A  few  years  after  Watson  Kenderdine  took  his  son-in-law, 
Hampton  W.  Rice,  into  partnership  under  the  name  of  Kender- 
dine &  Rice,  confining  their  business  to  fertilizers.  In  a  few 
years  they  dissolved  partnership,  the  senior  partner  continuing  for 
a  few  years  until  business  became  so  poor  from  the  encroachment 
of  the  North  East  Pennsylvania  railroad  which  cut  ofif  the  in- 
land trade,  so  that  the  mill  went  into  pathetic  silence.  This 
property,  after  its  last  owner's  death  brought  but  one-tenth  of  its 
cost,  the  woodwork  being  sold  ofif  for  old  lumber,  so  that  there  is 


158  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK 

nothing  left  now  but  the  foundation  walls  of  a  once  prosperous 
establishment. 

The  gristmill  was  bought  of  the  estate  of  John  E.  Kenderdine 
in  1869  by  Eugene  and  Wilson  S.  Paxson  and  run  by  them  for 
several  years,  much  money  being  spent  on  its  improvement,  which 
was  all  thrown  away  for  the  business  in  time  was  done  for.  The 
walls  yet  stand  but  the  machinery  is  gone,  while  the  rain  for 
many  years  through  a  leaking  roof  has  so  afifected  the  interior 
that  on  my  last  visit,  when  I  essayed  to  see  how  the  upper  parts 
looked,  I  found  the  first  stairway  too  much  decayed  for  safe 
mounting. 

The  lumber  yard  and  sawmill  and  two  houses,  as  well  as  the 
river  and  canal  landings,  were  bought  by  Isaac  H.  Worstall, 
who  rented  the  property  to  Bennett  &  Tinsman  of  Monroe,  later 
it  was  bought  by  William  Tinsman,  then  by  William  Tinsman 
&  Son,  and  still  later  by  Daniel  Tinsman  &  Son.  When  they  aban- 
doned the  sawmill  they  continued  to  maintain  a   lumber  yard. 

The  stone  quarries  of  Lumberton  had  been  worked  in  a  small 
way  for  forty  years,  when  the  Kemble  Brothers,  contractors  and 
politicians  of  Philadelphia,  bought  them  of  Worstall,  as  well  as 
the  once  Kenderdine  farm  back  of  them,  and  for  twenty-five 
years  they  operated  them  extensively,  sometimes  employing  one 
hundred  men,  getting  out  large  dressed  building  stone  and  paving 
blocks,  the  latter  going  to  pave  the  streets  of  Philadelphia,  where 
the  senior  member  of  the  firm  had  large  contracts. 

For  awhile  all  this  material  went  down  the  canal,  but  later  a 
tramway  was  built  across  the  Delaware  river  to  a  siding  on  the 
Belvidere  railroad,  and  the  stone  run  across  on  a  carrier.  The 
Kembles  bought  another  farm  on  which  there  was  a  quarry,.  Be 
sides,  they  had  built  two  new  houses  in  Lumberton  and  several 
in  Lumberville  for  their  employes,  but  the  stone  business  petered 
out,  the  same  as  had  the  lumber  and  grain  business,  mainly  from 
the  introduction  of  asphalt  for  paving  and  concrete  for  building 
walls,  so  the  quarries  became  idle,  as  are  the  rest  of  the  once- 
prominent  enterprises  around  Lumberton,  till  it  is  as  a  "banquet 
hall  deserted,"  the  old  name  of  the  village  being  even  removed 
from  the,  sign  on  the  yet-standing  quarry  office — the  word  "Lum- 
berville" taking  its  place  in  the  "Lumberton  Granite  Quarry  Com- 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK  159 

pany,"  the  term  "granite"  being  a  fake,  the  same  as  the  title  of 
the  village. 

POETS  AND  POETRY  OF  THE  CUTTALOSSA. 

The  Cuttalossa  may  have  been  "unwept  and  unhonored."  but 
it  has  not  been  "unsung"  even  though  in  a  primitive  way.  In 
Buck's  and  Davis'  histories  there  are  about  a  dozen  poems  of 
more  or  less  merit,  referring  to  the  stream,  and  Whittier  from  his 
temporary  nearness  to  its  watery  windings  might  easily  have  been 
induced  to  have  further  immortalized  it  with  the  favorings  of  his 
pen,  for  the  Healy  farm,  the  place  of  some  of  his  summer  out- 
ings, overlooked  the  Cuttalossa,  and  there  was  an  impressive 
view  over  where  its  waters  meandered  through  its  bosky  entour- 
age towards  the  Delaware,  but,  beyond  a  thirty-years  remem- 
brance of  the  "little  river."  and  its  outlet,  we  have  nothing  from 
the  Quaker  poet.  While  at  his  vacation  residence  he  had  larger 
ventures  on  hand,  and  between  them  and  his  editorial  work  on 
the  Pennsylvania  Freeman,  and  perfecting  some  of  his  poems  in 
transit,  he  had  little  time  for  local  work. 

With  the  exception  of  a  poem  addressed  to  the  Neshaminy,  and 
put  to  the  Confederate  States'  tune  of  "My  Maryland,"  as  a  class 
song,  written  by  a  George  School  student,  no  other  Bucks  county 
stream  has  been  poetically  apostrophized.  A  poem  written  by 
Nathan  Ely  about  1850  and  dedicated  "To  the  Cuttalossa,"  is 
mainly  impressive  from  the  personality  of  the  author.  An  humble 
farmer,  in  seclusion  from  a  stammering  infirmity,  and  this  to  an 
extent  to  cause  him  to  be  mimicked  by  the  thoughtless,  and  home- 
ly in  face  and  figure,  deserving,  as  I  knew  him,  the  pathetic  title 
of  "a  harmless  old  man,"  but  he  had  a  poetic  nature,  to  an  extent, 
perhaps  brought  about  by  his  social  isolation,  which  even  his  in- 
timate friends  were  unaware  of.  least  of  all  that  he  would  sing 
of  "loving  youthful  pairs"  and  their  "talk  of  love  and  future 
bliss."  The  following  are  the  verses,  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark 
that  they  were  written  before  the  stream  became  one  of  note : 

TO   THE   CUTTALOSSA. 

Fair  Cuttalossa,  why  shouldst  thou 

Remain  unnamed  in  song. 
When  thy  meandering  waters  flow 

So  pure  and  bright  along? 


160  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

Thou  glidest  through  the  grassy  mead 

And  through  the  lonely  dell, 
While  smaller  tributary  streams 

Thy  murmuring  waters  swell. 

In  places,  too,  thy  winding  sides 

With  trees  are  thickly  crowned, 
And  in  thy  dark  and  lonely  vales 

May  solitude  be  found; 

And  though  my  youthful  days  are  past, 

Yet  still  I  love  to  stray 
Along  thy  wild  romantic  shores 

And  hear  thy  waters  play. 

Here  on  thy  spreading,  smooth-barked  beech 

How  many  names  appear! 
Carved  by  the  hands  of  those  who  once 

Were  glad  to  wander  here. 

Full  many  a  loving,  j'outhful  pair 

Along  thy  banks  have  strayed 
And  talked  of  love  and  future  bliss 

Beneath  the  spreading  shade. 

But  ah!    How  many  who  once  loved 

Along  Ihy  shores  to  roam 
Now  sleep  beneath  the  graveyard  sod 

Lain  in  their  final  home. 

And  I,  ere  many  years  are  past. 

Must  cease  to  visit  thee. 
But  while  I  live  thy  shady  banks 

Will  still  be  dear  to  me. 

Watson  Kenderdine  wrote  a  "Legend  of  the  Cuttalossa"  in 
his  youth,  referring  to  the  tragic  death  of  a  young  Indian  girl, 
previously  mentioned,  and  William  J.  Buck  wrote  "The  Fern's 
Complaint,"  an  allusion  to  the  robbery  of  the  beds  of  that  plant 
by  tourists  along  the  stream,  and  also  "The  Wood  Thrush's  Song," 
both  of  credit  to  one  devoted  to  the  prose  of  local  history.  The 
three  poems  were  published  in  the  Cuttalossa  book.  "A  Rural 
Sketch,"  written  by  Dr.  John  Watson,  of  Buckingham,  about  the 
year  1800,  has  the  following  concluding  verse : 

And  let  man  not  throng  his  vain  pride  despise 
The  rural  hamlets  and  the  happy  swain. 

Where  Lahaskae  and  Cuttelause  rise 

And  water  with  their  streams  the  fertile  plain. 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK  161 

Perhaps  I  may  be  allowed  to  add  a  poem  of  my  own  in  con- 
nection with  the  subject: 

Where  Cuttalossa's  flowing 

Goes  murmuring  on  its  way, 
By  bush  and  sapHng  going, 

And  tall  trees  old  and  gray, 
Just  where  across  the  water 

From  the  quaint  old  gristmill  come 
The  big  brown  wheel's  low  patter, 

And  the  mill  stone's  drowsy  hum; 
Here  sparkling  from  its  birthplace. 

Just  up  the  rifted  hill, 
From  out  its  caverned  earthplace, 

Cascades  a  little  rill, 
Till  in  a  horse  trough  mossy. 

It  pours  its  crystal  tide, 
Where  comes  the  Cuttalossa 

From  meadows  green  and  wide. 


Thy  beeches  gray  and  lettered 

With  names  carved  long  ago. 
Shading  thy  waves  unfettered 

As  riverv^ard  they  go. 
Thy  spice-wood  fringed  meadows. 

The  hills  that  slope  beyond. 
The  trees  which  cast  their  shadows 

In  placid  pool  and  pond; 
Passed  is  each  old  time  feature; 

All  once  familiar  gone — 
It  seems  revenging  nature 

Was  coming  to  its  own. 
No  wonder  that  heart  burnings, 

I  feel  to  count  the  cost, 
As  come  to  me  the  yearnings 

For  so  much  loved  and  lost. 
Thy  streamlets  laurel  shaded. 

As  they  for  aye  have  been. 
By  dryads  reinvaded, 

And  all  their  woodland  kin; 
Thy  many  mill  wheels  noiseless, 

Unroofed  their  ragged  walls. 
Thy  homesteads  sad  and  voiceless 

Where  once  were  happy  halls; 
From  cellar  up  to  attic, 

In  Fate's  relentless  wars. 


162  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK 

And  all  so  emblematic 

Of  human  deaths  and  scars, 
Traditions  torn  asunder 

From  wreckages  of  time, 
Can  even  strangers  wonder 

If  sadness  rules  my  rhyme? 
My  parents,  sisters,  brothers. 

That  happy  made  my  life. 
Near  neighbors  and  the  others. 

With  them  my  thoughts  are  rife. 
Oh!    Whittier's  "little  river" 

Whose  vale  so  much  enfolds, 
Forget  thee  I  will  never. 

While  faintest  memory  holds! 

There  was  also  another  of  my  poems  of  one  hundred  and  eighty 
hnes  entitled :  "A  Lyric  of  the  Cuttalossa,"  written  about  1870, 
mainly  imaginable,  and  in  reference  to  the  fountain  and  the  theft 
of  "Our  Cup."  While  the  sylvan  guardians  of  the  place,  the 
Naiads  and  Satyrs,  tricked  by  Morpheus,  went  to  sleep,  the  rob- 
bery occurred,  to  their  extreme  disturbance  on  awaking.  But, 
stung  by  remorse  to  the  extent  of  a  violent  nightmare,  the  man 
and  brother  brought  the  cup  back  the  next  morning  to  the  great 
rejoicings  of 

The  woodland  sprites  exultant 

Who  in  sportive  gambols  played: 
Pan  piping  a  bacchanal  measure 

Frisked  up  and  down  the  glade, 
While  the  goat-like  prancing  Satyrs 

And  the  Naiads,  scant  arrayed, 
Keeping  time  to  the  pipe's  wild  music 

Danced  minuets  in  the  shade! 

The  first  poem  relative  to  the  Cuttalossa  was  written  by  Eliza- 
beth Armitage  in  1816.  She  was  a  sister  to  "Uncle  John,"  the 
miller,  to  whom  a  chapter  is  given  in  Buck's  history.  The  verses 
are  lost,  but  it  is  said  that  they  were  more  noted  for  their  odd 
spelling  of  the  creek  than  for  poetic  merit,  although  it  is  men- 
tionable  that  over  a  century  ago  the  Cuttalossa  stirred  up  the 
muses.  It  was  addressed  to  the  "Scuteloss,"  and  even  if  lacking 
in  metrical  imagination,  it  is  unfortunate  that  the  poem  was  lost, 
it  being  the  work  of  an  old-fashioned  maiden  lady,  housekeeper 
for  "Uncle  John."  Her  giant  boxbush,  of  an  age  to  suggest  the 
title  of  a  century  plant,  I  very  well  remember  seeing  as  it  stood 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  163 

in  front  of  the  miller's  house,  but  that,  as  has  its  caretaker,  has 
long  since  passed  away. 

Cyrus  Livezey  also  wrote  a  poem  on  the  Cuttalossa  which  was 
read  before  a  literary  gathering  around  "Poet's  Rock"  on  the 
shores  of  the  stream  in  1871.  His  brother,  Allen  Livezey,  got  up 
five  verses  similarly  addressed  which  can  be  found  in  Davis' 
Bucks  County  History.  There  were  other  poets  along  the  val- 
ley, but  their  lines  do  not  particularly  refer  to  its  water.  Among 
these  writers  was  George  Lear,  and  of  note  in  after  years  in  our 
county-seat,  and  who,  to  earn  money  to  fit  himself  as  a  school 
teacher,  as  a  preliminary  to  studying  for  the  law,  labored  at 
digging  the  headrace  of  the  second  Lumberton  sawmill  after 
"doing  his  bit"  on  the  Delaware  canal  on  the  same  lines.  What- 
ever credit  there  was  in  the  given  advice,  my  father  should  have 
it,  for,  seeing  great  possibilities  in  the  humble  pick-and-shovel 
man,  he  urged  him  to  higher  flights,  which  finally  culminated  at 
the  height  of  attorney  general  of  the  state  of  Pennsylvania.  It 
was  in  the  local  debating  school  where  my  father  saw  that  Lear 
deserved  more  than  he  was  getting  as  a  day  laborer,  and  advised 
him  to  make  efforts  toward  what  his  intellect  was  fitted  for, 
which  advice  he  took.  When  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  he  gave 
him  his  first  fee. 

As  a  local  poet  I  must  not  forget  William  Satterthwaite,  before 
mentioned,  as  eccentric  Englishman,  who  came  to  this  country' 
with  his  wife  about  1740.  After  living  in  different  places,  par- 
ticularly at  the  Durham  Furnace  and  Philadelphia,  he  came  to 
Solebury,  where  he  built  a  house,  or  what  would  now  be  called 
a  bungalow,  at  the  foot  of  Copper  Nose,  below  what  was  after- 
ward Lumberville.  He  owned  land  on  the  plain  above  and  there 
are  yet  the  marks  of  a  road  he  dug  to  reach  his  upper  holdings, 
necessary,  for  the  hill  overshadowing  his  home  rises  to  the  steep- 
ness of  forty-five  degrees.  W^hile  a  fabricator  of  poetry,  none  of 
which,  so  far  as  I  can  find  out  referred  to  the  Cuttalossa,  he  lived 
near  enough  to  the  stream  to  draw  inspiration  from  a  valley 
whence  close  resident  poets  seem  to  have  received  it.  A  victim  to 
domestic  lack  of  bliss,  at  one  time  involving  poisoning  by  his  ill- 
tempered  wife,  and  at  another  from  being  bitten  by  a  rattlesnake, 
which  reptile  should  have  named  the  abrupt  hill  back  of  his 
home,  and  from  which  he  was  saved  from  death  by  the  Indian 


164  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

doctor,  Nutimus,  from  Nockamixon,  he  may  have  been  driven  to 
poetry  by  the  mentioned  troubles,  and  outside  the  inspiration  al- 
luded to.  At  any  rate  he  had  the  divine  afflatus.  He  wrote 
several  poems,  extracts  from  a  number  of  which  I  will  give.  One 
of  these,  in  particular  I  remember  my  father  speaking  of  when 
I  was  quite  a  lad,  and  which  had  "Nothing"  for  its  subject.  Being 
asked  by  a  girl  pupil  to  write  her  a  poem,  and  not  then  in  a 
poetic  humor,  perhaps  from  having  been  that  morning  too  much 
of  a  target  for  his  wife's  tongue,  rolling-pin  or  flying  dishes,  he 
answered,  "As  I  feel  now  I  can  write  about  nothing."  "All 
right,"  she  said,  "write  about  Nothing."  Satterthwaite  made  an 
affirmative  reply,  and,  taking  "Nothing"  for  his  subject,  wrote  a 
remarkable  poem  thereon,  beginning : 

Nothing!    Nothing!    Mysterious  Nothing,  that  shall  be  my  theme, 
Nothing!    Nothing!    Mysterious  Nothing,  whence  all  beings  came. 

After  many  sad  experiences  and  tribulations,  in  which  his  wife 
acted  discordant  parts,  and  through  which  he  was  befriended  by 
such  important  persons  as  Judge  Jeremiah  Langhorne  and  Pro- 
vincial Surveyor  Jacob  Taylor,  and  doubtless  tired  of  playing 
Socrates  to  his  Xantippe,  Satterthwaite  went  to  a  deserved  rest 
at  the  home  of  his  kind  friend,  Langhorne,  nevermore,  let  us 
trust,  to  be  harassed  by  scold  or  serpent. 

Satterthwaite  was  a  school  teacher  and  a  classical  scholar,  and 
after  coming  to  Philadelphia  taught  in  Jacob  Taylor's  school, 
and  after  Taylor  became  surveyor  general  was  made  deputy  sur- 
veyor of  the  Province.  He  taught  several  schools  in  Bucking- 
ham and  Solebury,  just  before  the  Revolution  at  the  junction  of 
the  Street  road  and  the  road  leading  to  New  Hope  from  near 
what  is  now  Glendale.  He  was  proficient  in  Latin  and  Greek, 
so  much  so  in  the  latter  that  he  used  it  in  talking  to  his  horse 
which  he  seemed  to  think  understood  him.  Showing  further 
Satterthwaite's  eccentric  ways,  once  when  he  saw  a  negro  in  his 
despondency  from  being  whipped  by  a  brother  African,  threaten- 
ing to  take  his  life,  he  told  him  that  would  be  wicked,  and  to  let 
his  adviser  act  as  executioner.  Satterthwaite  performed  this 
service  so  well  that  before  its  conclusion  the  negro  begged  off 
and  was  cured  of  his  desire  for  self  destruction. 

My   father  came   into  possession   of   some   of    Satterthwaite's 


'       HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK  165 

manuscript ;  how,  and  what  became  of  it  I  do  not  know,  so  I 
must  depend  on  Davis'  Bucks'  County  History  for  the  extracts 
I  give.  The  poet  did  not  Hve  in  the  Cuttalossa  valley,  but  a  half 
mile  away,  but  in  his  despondent  wanderings  he  paid  it  visits. 
His  unfortunate  marriage  seemingly  a  forced  one  before  leaving 
England,  had  much  to  do  with  his  sad  life,  extending  to  quite  ad- 
vanced years. 

In  his  poetry  he  did  not  forget  to  apostrophize  the  snake  which 
came  nearly  doing  him  up,  thus : 

Thou  poisonous  serpent  with  a  noisy  tall, 
Whose  teeth  are  tinctured  with  the  plagues  of  hell! 

So  it  seems  that  he  was  not  bitten  by  a  copperhead,  which  sup- 
posedly from  that  gave  name  to  the  hill  overshadowing  his  house. 
He  afterwards  remarked  that  since  attempts  to  poison  him  had 
been  vainly  made  by  both  snake  and  wife  he  "defied  all  the  devils 
in  hell  to  kill  him." 

While  his  wife's  poison  failed  to  do  him  up,  a  poem  he  wrote 
failed  to  cure  her  of  one  of  her  sins — extravagance.  This  was 
the  "Indian  Queen,"  the  scene  of  which  was  laid  in  the  valley  of 
the  Laoglan,  a  creek  entering  the  Delaware  from  New  Jersey, 
below  Lumberton.  The  leading  lady  was  a  princess  who,  dis- 
satisfied with  the  plain  buckskin  suit  she  had  been  wearing,  after 
getting  a  gay  calico  gown,  accompanied  with  a  looking  glass,  went 
abroad  to  show  her  finery.  Passing  a  fire  her  dress  caught  in 
the  flames  and  she  was  burned  to  death ;  a  catastrophe  avoidable 
had  she  stuck  to  her  former  attire.  The  last  two  lines  of  the 
poem  were : 

The   princess   dies,   and   I   conclude   my  verse. 
Thus,  like  Alcides,  on  his  flaming  hearse, 

Instead  of  this  reforming  his  wife  she  ran  away,  thus  showing 
that  while  the  poet's  fabled  lyre  may  make  trees  dance,  woman's 
desire  for  dress  is  not  amenable  to  its  persuasions.  After  his 
wife's  abandonment,  in  one  of  his  forlorn  wanderings,  Satterth- 
waite  went  to  William  Skelton's  mill  at  the  mouth  of  the  Cutta- 
lossa.   Finding  the  mill  closed,  he  wrote  on  the  door. 

Here  Skelton  lurks,  and  unkind  refuge  seeks, 

On   Delaware's   banks,    between   two   awful   peaks. 

Showing  his  weariness  of  teaching  he  thus  expressed  himself : 


166  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

Oh!    what  a  stock  of  patience  needs  the  fool 
Who   spends  his   time   and   breath   in   teaching   school. 
Taught  or  untaught,  the  dunce  is  still  the  same; 
But  yet  the  wretched  master  gets  the  blame. 

The  following  is  part  of  elegy  to  his  good  friend,  Jeremiah 
Langhorne : 

He  stood  the  patriot  of  the   Province,  where 
Justice  was  nourished  with  celestial  care. 
He  taught  the  laws  to  know  their  just  design, 
Truth,  Justice,  Mercy  had  to  hand  to  join. 
Without  regard  to  fear  or  hope,  or  gain, 
Or  sly  designs  of  false,  corrupted  men. 

Of  a  religious  nature  he  wrote  a  poem  entitled  "Providence," 
beginning : 

O  Gracious  Power,  divinely  just  and  great. 
Who  rules  the  volumes  of  eternal  fate. 
Thou  Guard  of  thought,  Inspirer  of  my  song. 
My  thanks  to  Thee,  kind   Providence,  belong; 
Thou  wing'st  my  genius  and  inspir'st  my  soul 
To  sing  Thy  praise,  Great  Ruler  of  the  whole! 

The  following  poem,  reproving  a  young  woman  for  singing, 
was  found  among  my  father's  papers : 

Though    singing   is    a   pleasant    thing, 

Approved  and  done  in  Heaven; 
It  only  should  employ  the  souls 

Who  know  their  sins  forgiven. 

Though  far  from  being  contemporaneous,  as  Satterthwaite  died 
a  few  years  before  my  father  was  born,  the  poet  seems  to  have 
much  impressed  him ;  perhaps  from  his  association  with  Lum- 
berton. 

Besides  the  friends  of  Satterthwaite  already  named,  there  was 
Lawrence  Growdon,  who  invited  him  in  his  declining  years  to 
make  his  home  with  him,  but  he  went  to  Jeremiah  Langhorne's 
instead,  and  there  at  Langhorne  Park  his  life  ended.  John  Chap- 
man, clerk  at  the  Durham  Iron  Works,  where  Satterthwaite 
taught  school  for  sevaral  years,  was  also  his  good  friend,  as  was 
also  John  Watson,  who  being  something  of  a  poet,  made  their 
meeting  together  the  more  agreeable.  Watson,  as  a  state  sur- 
veyor, with  his  party,  did  work  around  the  Durham  Iron  Works. 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA  CREEK  167 

There  was  also  a  man  named  Pellar,  perhaps  a  Solebury  Pellar, 
to  be  added  to  the  coterie.  Mention  is  made  of  the  party  in  their 
leisure  hours  (when  school  was  not  kept,  the  chain  and  quadrant 
idle  and  the  clerk  not  wanted  at  his  desk),  that  they  convening 
at  a  Durham  trout  stream,  where,  between  casts  of  flies  and  the 
draft  of  "speckled  beauties,"  and  sips  of  punch,  the  poets,  and 
those  of  other  guilds  talked  shop  and  read  one  to  another.  In  his 
closing  years,  when  under  the  hospitable  roof  of  Langhorne,  and 
after  his  Jezebel  of  a  wife  had  ceased  to  trouble,  he  often  re- 
verted to  those  halcyon  days  along  Durham  creek.  He  must 
have  remembered  the  extemporaneous  ode  with  which  his  friend 
Watson  woke  up  the  lazybones  of  the  camp,  closing  with : 

The  sun  peeps  o'er  the  highest  tree, 
Ere  we  have  sipped  our  punch  and  tea; 
So  time  rolls  on  from  day  to  day. 
That  noon  comes  ere  we  can  survey. 

Indicating  that  Surveyor  John  Watson,  despite  his  friendliness, 
did  not  object  to  drinking  something  stronger  than  tea.  Thus 
showing  that  Satterthwaite,  despite  his  failings,  had  his  friends ; 
so  I  make  no  excuse  for  giving  him  so  much  space,  the  facts  of 
which  I  am  mainly  indebted  to  Davis'  History,  from  the  chapter 
"Our  Poets  and  Their  Poetry."  The  Satterthwaites  had  a  son 
named  George,  but  there  is  no  knowledge  as  to  what  became 
of  him. 

THE  FOUNTAIN. 

To  write  up  the  Cuttalossa  history  and  leave  out  something 
concerning  the  fountain  would  be  eliminating  the  mournful  Dane 
in  playing  Hamlet.  This  is  where  the  valley  opens  onto  farm 
lands,  though  at  the  foot  of  a  wooded  hillside,  and  where  a 
copious  spring  gushes  from  a  little  cavern  at  the  summit.  As  the 
historian  Bucks  says,  "the  situation  is  lovely  and  romantic.  The 
fountain  is  overhung  and  shaded  by  the  long  pendant  branches  of 
the  beech,  red  oak  and  willow.  The  spice  wood  also  helps  to 
canopy  it,  in  September  brilliant  with  numerous  red  berries." 

In  1866,  long  after  John  E.  Kenderdine  had  placed  a  watering- 
trough  by  the  roadside,  Joseph  D.  Armitage  (who  lived  on  an 
ancestral  farm  just  across  the  Cuttalossa).  noticing  the  many 
people  stopping  there  to  quench  their  thirst,  made  a  drinking  cup 


168  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

from  a  cocoanut  shell,  with  an  iron  handle  on  which  he  inscribed : 

OUR   CUP. 

Art  not  cold  wells  and  crystal  springs, 
For  our  hotels  the  very  things? 

Whittier. 

His  crediting  the  lines  to  Whittier  was  a  mistake,  as  they  were 
written  by  John  Pierpont.  To  further  beautify  and  utilize  the 
spring  with  its  rude  wooden  watering-trough,  the  neighbors,  and 
people  as  far  away  as  Doylestown,  subscribed  the  sum  of  $160 
for  a  flagstone  trough,  flanked  with  concave  walls,  on  each  end 
of  which  there  was  a  capped  column  and  stone  steps,  on  which 
were  inscribed  the  above  verse  of  Pierpoint's,  and  also  "Cutta- 
LOSSA  Fountain,  erected  1873,  by  Admirers  of  the  Beauti- 
ful/' In  addition  to  the  cash  subscriptions  there  was  much 
gratitous  work. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  road,  overshadowed  by  a  large  wil- 
low tree,  on  a  stone  foundation  was  set  a  marble  basin  four  feet 
square,  a  companion  piece  to  one  in  front  of  the  Fountain  House, 
Doylestown,  and  in  this  an  image  of  a  boy  on  whose  head  rested 
a  shell.  A  lead  pipe  was  run  from  the  spring  under  the  road  and 
up  through  the  basin,  image  and  shell,  and  on  its  summit  a  wheat 
sheaf  shaped  spray  was  arranged.  With  the  good  pressure  at  its 
back  a  fine  fountain  was  the  result,  the  admiration  of  all  passers- 
by,  tourists  coming  from  far  and  near  to  see  it,  and  to  water  their 
teams  and  rest  on  the  seats  placed  on  the  slope  of  the  hill.  For 
awhile  an  ice  cream  vendor  came  on  certain  days,  and  the  place 
became  quite  a  resort.  Everything  went  well  for  a  time ;  the 
Armitage  sisters,  who  owned  the  property  around  the  spring, 
cleared  out  the  underbrush,  put  up  additional  steps  and  planted 
hitching  posts.  But  the  time  came  when  these  good  ladies  died 
and  the  promoters  of  the  fountain  had  moved  away —  those  who 
had,  when  danger  of  destruction  by  freezing  came  to  the  perish- 
able parts  of  the  fountain,  removed  and  housed  them  through  the 
winter  months,  and  in  the  spring  replaced  them.  Finally  there 
were  no  caretakers,  and  hence  no  autumn  removals  of  the  perish- 
able parts ;  the  openings  froze,  bad  boys  stoned  the  image  and 
shell,  and  the  time  came  when  the  beautiful  erection  in  the 
shades  of  the  Cuttalossa  valley  was  a  wreck.    To  crown  these  mis- 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  169 

fortunes  someone  stole  a  marble  block  from  its  column,  the  one 
on  which  was  carved  the  beautiful  verse  of  Pierpont's.  To  those 
who  expended  so  much  for  this  beauty  spot  a  visit  to  the  wrecked 
place  is  saddening.  William  J.  Buck  visited  the  fountain  in  1896, 
and  was  pained  at  the  sight.  When  he  was  there  before  there 
were  many  visitors,  the  beautiful  center  of  the  shaded  surround- 
ings was  in  perfect  shape,  and  the  fountain  playing.  Now  all 
was  so  dififerent ;  the  many  travelers  were  replaced  by  a  lone 
bicycler,  the  pipe  from  the  spring  was  choked  up  and  the  foun- 
tain accessories  gone.  I  suppose  the  wonder  was  that,  without 
the  caretakers,  they  had  lasted  as  long  as  they  had. 

A  few  hundred  yards  below  on  the  left  side  of  the  creek  is  a 
largesized,  oblong  stone,  named  "Poet's  Rock,"  from  a  literary 
gathering  once  held  there.  In  a  glen  just  back  of  it  was  a  large 
beech,  its  bark  carved  with  many  names,  among  which,  plainly 
seen  in  1873,  was  the  following:  "Rt.  Kenerdine,  4th  Month 
27th.  1856;  for  Futurity."  He  was  then  fifteen  yeears  old,  a 
peaceful,  Quaker  boy,  little  thinking  then  that  in  seven  years  he 
would  be  brought  home  dead  from  the  awful  carnage  at  Gettys- 
burg. The  tree  is  no  longer  there,  for  the  portable  sawmill  has 
done  its  work  and  the  glen  is  deforested. 

Of  the  good  people  who  lived  along  the  valley  of  the  Cutta- 
losse,  and  whom  I  can  remember  and  whom  I  can  count  not 
only  by  units  but  by  scores — the  owners  of  farms  and  tenants 
thereof — the  owners,  the  Seiners,  Jewells,  Balderstons,  Wilsons, 
Armitages,  Healys,  Paxsons  and  others — where  are  they?  I  can 
only  name  as  yet  residents,  or  in  the  land  of  the  living,  Charles 
S.  Baldereston,  Amos  Armitage,  Eugene  Paxson  and  his  son, 
Samuel  L.,  living  on  the  divided  farm  of  Howard  Paxson,  their 
ancestor.    Excepting  those. 

They  have  gone  their  short  space,  they  have  lived  their  short  day; 
As  a  tale  that  is  told  they  have  vanished  away. 

When  my  father  moved  to  Lumberton  it  was  with  the  justified 
thought  that  his  descendants  would  occupy  his  holdings  in  per- 
petuity, and  he  made  his  will  in  accordance.  The  result :  a  line 
of  ruined  business  places  in  succession  along  the  Cuttalossa  and  a 
scattered  family,  none  of  the  name  living  within  fifteen  miles  of 
Lumberton,  showing  that  while  man  proposes  changed  business 
conditions  make  the  disposition. 


170  HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF  CUTTALOSSA   CREEK 

Relative  to  the  difference  in  sizes  of  families,  then  and  now, 
I  will  mention  three  instances  on  contiguous  farms.  In  our 
family  there  were  eight  children,  in  Howard  Paxson's  nine,  and 
in  his  brother  Abraham's  ten,  the  latter  now  all  deceased.  Of 
Howard  Paxson's,  seven  of  the  nine  are  living,  and  of  my 
father's  two  remain.  These  families  all  belonged  to  the  Society 
of  Friends,  in  fact  among  the  people  for  miles  around  there  was 
scarcely  a  family  that  did  not  belong  to  that  society.  Of  the 
few  descendants  left,  there  is  not  one  save  at  rare  intervals,  who 
now  attend  the  Solebury  Meeting,  the  place  of  worship  of  their 
ancestors,  where  carriage  loads  formerly  wended  their  way.  With 
such  families  as  those  named  and  I  have  left  out  one,  William 
Kitchen,  a  farmer  living  away  from  the  others  I  have  named, 
where  there  were  seven  children,  all  now  deceased,  is  it  any 
wonder  that  our  "eight-square  schoolhouse"  had  a  roster  of 
ninety  pupils,  even  if  they  could  not  all  get  within  its  confines  at 
one  time,  they  crowded  in  and  came  by  relays.  There  were  no 
truant  laws  then. 

This  much  from  what  I  know  personally  and  from  printed 
data  concerning  the  Cuttalossa,  its  mills,  homes  and  people.  I 
have  heretofore  written  much  concerning  the  locality,  but  a  great 
part  of  this  was  of  extreme  local  or  family  interest ;  so  much  so, 
indeed,  as  to  not  be  effective  for  the  general  public.  For  an  ex- 
haustive account  of  the  Cuttalossa  the  curious  are  referred  to 
Buck's  History  or  Reeder's  "Early  Soolebury  Settlers."  As  to 
the  first-named  author,  from  his  distance  from  the  scenery  and 
people  connected  with  the  valley,  he  has  done  wonders  in  making 
searches  from  ancient  documents  and  gleaning  information  from 
local  contemporaries  around  the  titled  stream.  Unfortunately 
for  those  interested,  at  least  so  far  as  I  have  sought  to  get  a  copy 
of  "The  Cuttalossa,  Its  Historical,  Traditional  and  Poetical  Asso- 
ciations," the  book  was  not  obtainable,  when  twice  advertising 
for  one  to  replace  by  lire-damaged  copy.  There  was  talk  of  its 
re-publication,  but  so  far  it  has  not  availed. 

NOTE  BY  THE  EDITOR. 

Mr.  Kenderdine  was  in  the  82nd.  year  of  his  age  when  he 
read  this  paper.      He   was   born   in   the   village    of    Lumberton, 


HISTORICAL  REMINISCENCES  OF   CUTTALOSSA   CREEK  171 

Bucks  county,  Pa.,  December  10,  1836,  and  passed  away  at  his 
home  at  Newtown,  Pa.,  February  17,  1922. 

He  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical 
Society  July  21,  1896,  and  on  January  17,  1911,  was  made  a 
member  of  its  board  of  directors,  serving  in  that  capacity  down 
to  the  time  of  his  death.  He  was  an  active  member  of  the  so- 
ciety, attending  its  meetings  with  regularity  and  contributing  a 
number  of  valuable  papers,  as  reference  to  the  society's  publica- 
tions will  show.  He  was  a  prolific  writer  of  both  prose  and 
poetry,  and  the  seven  books  which  he  published  can  be  found  on 
the  shelves  of  our  library.  His  first  book,  published  in  1888, 
entitled  "A  California  Tramp,  and  Later  Footprints,"  (contain- 
ing 416  pages)  gives  a  most  interesting  and  graphic  account  of 
his  trip  across  the  prairies  punching  a  team  of  oxen,  from 
Leavenworth,  Kansas,  to  Camp  Floyd,  near  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah, 
loaded  with  supplies  for  one  of  the  western  forts,  and  the  after 
experiences  of  his  trip  to  California  after  discharging  his  load, 
and  leaving  his  team  of  oxen.  This,  as  well  as  his  other  writ- 
ings, show  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  more  than  usual  literary 
attainments.  He  was  one  of  the  Bucks  County  Poets  referred  to 
by  General  Davis  in  his  History  of  Bucks  County.  His  second 
book,  published  in  1898.  is  entitled  "California  Revisited."  His 
other  five  books,  published  in  1913,  1914,  1916,  1917  and  1921 
respectively,  which  he  calls  "Personal  Recollections  and  Travels 
at  Home  and  Abroad,"  (Vol.  1,  2,  3,  4  and  5)  are  made  up 
largely  of  papers  read  before  societies  or  published  in  newspapers. 
One  of  them.  Volume  5.  contains  his  autobiography,  to  which 
reference  can  be  had.  His  portrait  forms  part  of  the  frontispiece 
of  this  volume. 


Maple  Sugar  Making  in  Southwestern  Pennsylvania  and 
Northeastern  Virginia. 

BY   E.    F.   BOWLBY,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January   18,   1918.) 

ALONG  about  the  middle  of  February,  the  farmer  would 
load  his  sugar-troughs  on  a  sled  (often  drawn  by  a  good 
yoke  of  oxen)  and  distribute  them  to  the  sugar  maple 
trees,  one  and  sometimes  two  or  even  three  to  a  tree,  if  that 
particular  tree  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  good  producer  or  if 
the  season  promised  to  be  short.  After  the  troughs  had  been 
distributed  and  the  weather  just  right  for  a  good  flow,  (for  the 
sugar  maple  tree  is  very  sensitive  to  weather  conditions,)  he  took 
his  tapping-auger,  a  small  wooden  mallet  and  a  basket  of  spiles 
and  proceeded  to  tap  the  trees.  This  is  done  by  boring  holes  in 
the  side  of  the  trees  about  eighteen  inches  or  two  feet  from  the 
ground  (generally  on  the  southeast  side  and  about  one  inch  in 
depth),  fitting  into  the  holes  two  or  three  spiles  for  each  trough, 
which  is  placed  firmly  up  close  to  the  tree  under  the  spiles.  These 
spiles  were  made  from  the  elder  or  the  sumac  and  were  about 
one  foot  long,  one  end  being  tapered  so  as  to  fit  snugly  in  the 
hole  in  the  tree ;  the  top  was  shaven  down  to  the  pith,  which  was 
removed,  leaving  that  part  an  open  spout. 

The  troughs  were  made  from  some  easily-worked  wood,  such 
as  poplar,  or  walnut.  The  tree  intended  for  troughs  was  first 
cut  into  lengths  of  from  three  to  five  feet,  then  split  into  halves, 
each  half  hewed  out  with  an  adze  and  axe  into  neat  little  troughs, 
holding  from  three  to  six  gallons.  The  augers  wxre  made  by 
the  local  blacksmith. 

Next  was  the  gathering  of  the  sugar-water  and  hauling  it 
to  the  sugarhouse,  this  was  done  by  placing  barrels  on  sleds, 
drawn  by  the  same  faithful  yoke  of  oxen.  The  sugar-water,  was 
dipped  from  the  troughs  with  a  gourd  dipper,  first  into  wooden 
pails  and  then  poured  into  the  barrels  through  a  funnel  made 
from  one  of  the  sugar  troughs  by  boring  a  whole  in  its  bottom  in 
which  was  driven  a  short  wooden  spout.  The  sugarhouse  was 
built  of  logs  in  some  convenient  place   in  the  woods,    (always 


MAPLE  SUGAR   MAKING  173 

leaving  an  opening  in  the  roof  to  allow  the  steam  to  escape). 
The  furnace  was  built  of  stone  and  arched  over  the  top,  into 
which  were  inserted  large  iron  kettles,  as  many  as  were 
needed.  The  chimney  was  built  on  the  outside  at  the  end  of  the 
sugarhouse.  Although  situated  in  the  bituminous  coal  district, 
the  fuel  was  wood  which  was  cut  and  hauled  and  piled  just  out- 
side the  sugarhouse  during  the  early  months  of  winter.  The 
sugar-water  was  poured  into  these  kettles  and  boiled  down  to  a 
thin  syrup,  often  throwing  into  the  kettle  of  boiling  sugar- water 
a  small  piece  of  fat  meat  to  keep  it  from  foaming  over  the  top  of 
the  kettle. 

The  periods  of  boiling  down  were  continuous  day  and  night, 
or  days  and  nights  when  they  had  specially  good  runs  of  sugar- 
water.  During  these  long  evening-boilings,  the  young  folks 
would  gather  at  the  sugarhouse  and  have  their  "stirring-off" 
parties.  They  would  hang  an  iron  pot  on  a  tripod  over  an  open 
fire  and  boil  down  this  syrup,  sitting  around  it,  each  one  with  a 
large  spoon,  and  a  cup  of  cold  w^ater,  and  dip  the  boiling  syrup 
from  the  pot  and  drop  it  into  the  water.  The  result  was  the 
finest  maple  wax  and  taffy  that  any  mortal  ever  tasted.  Talk 
about  your  husking-bees,  apple-cuttings,  corn-roasts,  etc.,  they 
were  not  to  be  compared  to  the  pleasure  of  a  stirring-off  party 
at  the  old  sugarhouses. 

This  syrup  was  then  taken  to  the  sugarhouse  where  the  boil- 
ing down  was  continued  until  it  reached  just  the  right  point, 
the  kettle  was  then  taken  from  the  fire  and  the  contents  stirred 
vigorously  until  the  result  became  a  nice  crumbly  mass  of  maple 
sugar. 

AN  OLD  WALNUT  SUGAR  TROUGH. 

In  conclusion  I  want  to  describe  an  old  walnut  sugar-trough 
presented  to  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society  by  Mr.  J.  C. 
Lemley  of  near  Mount  Morris,  Greene  county,  Pennsylvania. 

This  historic  trough  (exhibiting  trough)  was  made  from  the 
top  of  an  old  walnut  tree,  cut  on  the  Lemley  farm  in  the  spring 
of  1838,  the  farm  now  owned  by  J.  C.  Lemley  but  then  owned 
by  his  uncle,  Asa  Lemley,  who  in  that  year  had  the  body  of  the 
tree  sawed  into  planks  and  the  top  and  large  limbs  made  into 
sugar-troughs. 

In  September  1767,  Mason  &  Dixon  with  their  engineers  and 


174  MAPLE  SUGAR  MAKING 

axemen,  came  to  Dunkirk  creek,  and  on  sighting  their  instru- 
ments across  the  creek,  found  this  large  tree  to  be  directly  on 
the  line  and  sent  some  of  their  axemen  across  to  blaze  it  as  a 
line-tree.  This  was  done  by  making  three  hacks  about  two  feet 
apart  with  an  axe.  When  the  men  approached  the  tree  they  were 
attacked  by  Shawnee  and  Delaware  Indians,  and  were  driven 
away.  On  making  another  attempt  they  were  again  attacked 
and  some  of  the  party  were  killed,  while  the  rest  of  them,  includ- 
ing Mason  and  Dixon,  were  driven  back  and  did  not  resume  their 
survey  until  twelve  years  later,  when  they  completed  their  work 
without  further  trouble  from  the  Indians.  This  walnut  tree  was 
the  last  tree  marked  until  the  return  of  Mason  and  Dixon  twelve 
years  later.  When  they  returned  in  1779,  to  complete  the  survey, 
they  found  the  Indians  had  place  a  thirty-foot  ladder  against  this 
tree,  and  from  there  up  had  bored  holes  into  which  they  drove 
wooden  pins,  by  which  they  climbed  to  its  top  in  order  to  get 
honey,  for  this  was  a  bee  tree.  And  this  is  supposed  to  be  the 
reason  why  the  Indians  had  attacked  the  men  and  driven  them 
away,  thinking  they  were  going  to  cut  down  the  tree  to  get  the 
honey.  J.  C.  Lumley  has  another  trough,  made  from  the  same 
tree,  which  is  charred  on  one  side,  showing  where  the  Indians 
had  a  fire  to  smoke  out  the  bees.  This  walnut  tree  stood  on  the 
north  bank  of  Dunkirk  creek  at  the  first  and  lower  crossing  of 
Mason  &  Dixon's  line,  two  miles  southeast  of  Fort  Morris,  Pa., 
three  miles  northeast  of  Statler's  Fort  and  about  ten  miles  due 
west  of  Fort  Martin,  Pa.,  near  the  Monongahela  river.  This  tree 
was  at  the  end  of  the  survey,  the  line  ending  at  two  gum  trees 
standing  about  one-half  mile  east  thereof.  On  the  Pennsylvania 
side,  near  this  tree,  is  the  remains  of  an  Old  Indian  fort,  and  on 
the  West  Virginia  side,  about  the  same  distance  from  the  line, 
on  a  large  stone  is  what  Mr.  Lemley  called  a  "turkey  foot",  but 
which  I  am  inclined  to  think  was  an  Indian  guidepost.  as  it 
points  directly  north  and  south. 

Mr.  Lemley  has  also  presented  to  this  society  three  spiles  over 
forty-five  years  old,  made  from  elders,  also  a  gourd  dipper  which 
he  had  used  to  dip  sugar- water  from  the  troughs.  (These  ob- 
jects were  shown  at  the  meeting,  and  brought  forth  quite  an  in- 
teresting discussion.) 

Mr.  Lemley  has  in  his  possession  a  gourd  dipper  and  an  uncut 


NORSE  MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  175 

gourd  which  are  now  (1919)  eighty-seven  years  old.  He  also 
showed  me  his  present  sugarhouse  which  is  partly  sided  up  with 
some  of  the  plank  sawed  eighty  years  ago  from  the  old  walnut 
tree  to  which  I  have  referred.  One  of  these  plank  contains  the 
three  hacks  made  by  Mason  &  Dixon's  men  in  blazing  the  tree. 
Also  another  plank  with  three  holes  bored  by  the  Indians  in 
which  the  wooden  pins  were  driven  to  form  a  ladder  by  which 
they  climbed  the  tree. 


Norse  Mills  of  Colonial  Times  in  Pennsylvania. 

BY  FREDERICK  HART  SHELTON,   PHILADELPHIA,   PA.^ 
(Doylestown  Meeting-,  January  18,  1919.) 

IN  some  of  the  text  books  on  geometry,  etc.,  a  concise  ques- 
tion or  proposition  is  first  propounded ;  the  answer  given  and 
then  the  detail  shown,  of  how  the  answer  is  arrived  at. 

In  approaching  the  subject  of  this  paper  I  am  inclined  to  pro- 
ceed in  much  the  same  way.  by  first  tersely  asking,  "What  is  a 
Norse  Mill"  and  also  "What  has  such  to  do  with  the  history  of 
this  district  in  which  we  are  interested  ?"  and  then  briefly  answer- 
ing, first,  that  a  so-called  "Norse  Mill"  is  the  crudest  and  simplest 
form  of  old  time  water  wheel,  used  for  driving  a  primitive  grist- 
mill ;  and  second  that  it  was  such  form  of  mill  that  was  first 
erected  in  the  territory  that  is  now  the  Commonwealth  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  the  first  kind  of  power  mill  of  any  sort  to  turn  a 
wheel  in  this  state,  that  now,  nearly  three  centuries  later,  is  one 
of  the  chief  industrial  states  of  the  Union.  This  being  so,  it 
becomes  of  some  interest  to  learn- what  a  Norse  mill  was,  and 
when,  where  and  by  whom  such  was  or  were  erected  in  the  lo- 
cality in  which  we  now  dig  up — both  metaphorically  and  actually, 
the  records  and  evidences  of  the  past. 

Water  wheels,  like  nearly  everything  else,  have  been  developed, 
from  early  crude  and  inefficient  forms,  to  advanced  forms  of 
high  efficiency.  The  present  type,  the  modern  iron  turbine  wheel, 
gives  an  efficiency  of  power  secured,  compared  with  the  theoreti- 

1   Mr.  Shelton  died  in  Pliiladelphia,  November  24,  1924. 


176  NORSE  MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES  IN   PENNSYLVANIA 

cal  power  of  the  water  used,  of  up  to  eighty-five  per  cent.  This 
is  a  development  of  say  the  last  three  generations.  But  for  hun- 
dreds of  years  before  this,  the  highest  perfection  of  water  wheel 
design,  dating  from  remotest  ages,  back  to  the  Romans  and  all 
that,  was  the  old  overshot  wood  wheel,  familiar  to  every  one  as 
the  characteristic  water  wheel  of  the  miller,  the  artist,  the  poet 
and  the  schoolbook.  While  there  were  variations,  known  as  the 
breast  wheel,  when  the  water  was  admitted  not  on  top,  but  on  the 
side ;  or  the  undershot,  when  the  water  impinged  against  the 
lower  part  of  the  wheel,  the  general  type  and  form  was  the  same, 
viz :  a  massive,  large  wooden  wheel  on  edge,  like  a  silver  dollar, 
carried  on  a  shaft  or  axle,  from  which  the  power  was  in  nearly 
every  case,  necessarily  taken  off  by  suitable  intermediate  gearing, 
to  the  grist  stones  or  other  machinery  to  be  driven. 

But  while  such  form  of  wheel,  giving  up  to  perhaps  sixty  per 
cent  of  efficiency,  was  in  general  use  in  all  countries  favored 
with  water  falls,  there  was  yet  a  simpler  and  cruder  form  also  in 
use,  namely  that  which  is  known  as  the  "Norse"  wheel,  at  least 
in  the  English  speaking  races.  And  this  form  is  best  described 
or  brought  to  mind  by  picturing  such  a  miniature  wheel  as  a  boy 
would  make  by  sticking  a  few  shingles  into  a  vertical  shaft  and 
setting  such  in  a  brook  where  the  water  would  hit  the  blades  on 
one  side  and  make  the  wheel  turn  around.  That  is  all  there  is 
practically,  to  a  Norse  wheel.  You  can  see  that  nothing  could 
be  more  simple ;  that  it  is  the  crudest  possible  form  of  power 
wheel,  and  that  as  such,  nations  or  countries  but  partly  civilized 
could  yet  construct  and  use  in  a  simple  primitive  way ;  which  has 
been  the  case  the  world  over.  For  like  everything  else,  in  which 
there  are  both  simple  and  complex  forms  of  things,  side  by  side, 
while  the  more  elaborate  overshot  wheel  was  equally  known  and 
of  equal  antiquity,  the  little  ■  horizontal  spin-wheel  of  this  so- 
called  Norse  form,  was  used  at  the  same  time  and  probably  in 
considerably  greater  numbers,  through  all  known  ages. 

Remains  of  these  wheels  have  been  dug  up  in  Ireland,  that 
trace  back  to  the  period  between  the  years  700  and  1100,  and 
there  is  plenty  of  evidence  elsewhere  of  their  use  for  half  a 
dozen  centuries  back,  the  world  over.  Weisbach  in  his  Mechanics 
of  Engineering  says  that  "they  are  met  with  in  all  the  moun- 
tainous countries  of  Europe  and  in  the  north  of  Africa,  applied 


NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA  177 

as  mills  for  grinding  corn."  They  are  still  found  in  the  remote 
portions  of  Norway  and  Sweden  and  in  the  Shetland,  Orkney 
and  Farce  Islands ;  in  Maderia  and  in  Roumania ;  extensively 
used  and  of  great  antiquity  of  use.  In  France,  they  have  long 
been  known  as  the  "roulet  volante"  and  a  cut  of  one  is  shown 
in  Glynn's  A  Rudimentary  Treatise  on  Pozver  of  Water  of  1853. 

The  best  description,  in  detail  and  with  illustrations,  of  this 
type  of  old.  primitive  water  wheel  can  be  found  in  Vol.  II  of 
Bennett  and  Eaton's  History  of  Corn  Milling  (1899),  where  in 
chapter  3,  eighteen  pages  upon  the  subject  may  be  found.  An- 
other description  is  that  of  an  article  on  old  "Clack  Mills"  in 
English  County  Life,  Vol.  XXV  (1904),  pp.  709-10,  where  an 
old  Norse  mill  in  the  Orkney  Islands  is  pictured  and  described, 
with  a  sketch  as  well  of  the  mill  stone  and  grain  feed  detail. 
Mitchell's  Past  in  the  Present  (1876),  gives  a  brief  description. 
TJic  Scientific  American  of  May  8,  1886,  page  292,  vol.  54, 
briefly  describes  "A  Shetland  Tirl".  And  lesser  references  to 
these  mills  can  be  found  in  many  of  the  engineering  and  other 
books  on  water  wheels,  their  history,  etc.  I  will  not  consume  time 
by  here  going  into  an  extended  detail  of  the  design  and  construc- 
tion, as  the  type  was  or  is  the  same,  where  ever  found,  while  the 
detail  varies  naturally,  according  to  human  ideas  and  preferences 
and  conditions  the  world  over.  Sufficient  it  is  to  say,  that  the 
scheme  of  these  Norse  wheels  is  invariably  that  of  a  vertical 
shaft,  the  lower  end  fitted  with  blades,  buckets  or  paddles  in  a 
horizontal  zone  by  which  the  water  makes  the  wheel  turn  around, 
and  the  upper  and  carrying  a  runner  or  revolving  mill  stone 
that  works  over  a  fixed  or  bedstone  just  beneath  it.  There  is 
some  simple  arrangement  for  raising  or  lowering  the  rig,  so  as 
to  vary  the  space  between  the  stones  and  thereby  grind  fine  or 
coarse,  and  some  simple  jiggle  or  clapper  device  to  feed  the 
grain  from  the  hopper  to  the  stones ;  a  crude  small  enclosed  house 
about  eight  to  twelve  feet  square,  with  a  roof,  and  that's  all ! 

About  the  only  variation  of  moment  is  the  kind  of  blade  or 
paddle  used  on  the  shaft.  A  well  preserved  wheel  and  shaft,  of 
the  very  early  Irish  mills,  had  nineteen  spoon  or  scoop  shaped 
bucket  blades  of  oak,  of  which  ten  yet  remained,  when  dug  up. 
In  the  mills  of  Madeira  the  buckets  are  not  straight  boards,  few 
in  number,  but  some  twenty,  of  curved  form,  held  between  wood 


178  NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA 

rings ;  and  this  is  also  the  arrangement  of  the  North  CaroHna 
wheels.  But  in  Norway  the  blades  are  made  of  straight  fiat 
boards,  six  or  eight  in  number,  though  sometimes  ten  or  twelve, 
a  foot  wide  and  perhaps  eighteen  inches  long  and  one  and  one- 
quarter  inches  thick,  mortised  into  a  heavy  wood  vertical  shaft. 
And  in  this  region  the  boards  are  usually  placed  at  an  angle  or 
obliquely  so  that  the  flat  side  is  squarely  presented  for  the  im- 
pact of  the  water,  which  is  fed  to  the  wheel  by  a  chute  or  trough 
at  an  angle  varying  from  twenty  to  forty  degrees.  In  France 
the  design  is  both  the  few-bladed  paddle  form  and  the  multiplex 
curved  bucket  form.  In  Roumania  again,  in  the  Carpathian 
mountain  regions,  mills  are  found  virtually  exact  duplicates  of 
the  Norway  form.  In  the  Shetland  Islands,  where  one  hundred 
years  ago  it  is  said  there  were  five  hundred  of  these  mills  and  in 
the  Orkney  and  Farce  Islands,  etc.,  the  form  is  about  the  same 
as  in  Norway  with  sometimes  a  double  row  of  paddle  boards, 
and  this  is  as  would  be  expected,  as  it  is  about  two  hundred  to 
three  hundred  miles  to  the  two  first  named  island  groups  and 
the  north  of  Scotland  (where  these  mills  are  also  found)  and  the 
introduction  of  these  mills  is  attributed  to  Norse  invaders  in 
early  times. 

While  these  mills  are  called  "Norse  Mills"  by  us,  because  we 
so  see  them  styled  in  what  we  read  in  the  English  prints,  I  ques- 
tion the  propriety  of  such  designation.  For  they  are  no  more 
Norse  than  of  any  other  country.  As  already  stated  they  are 
found  in  many  countries,  and  the  plain  straight  fiat  blade  form 
in  particular  is  not  confined  to  the  Norse  Land  or  the  Scandi- 
navian peninsular.  Roumania  is  a  far  cry;  and  I  greatly  doubt 
whether  the  northern  African  or  the  central  European  or  the 
Chinese  users  (for  they  have  such  primitive  wheel  in  great  num- 
bers in  China  as  well)  think  of  these  simpler  water  wheels  in 
the  least  as  Norse  wheels !  And  the  Carolina  wheel  that  adorns 
the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  might  as 
well  be  called  a  Madeira  wheel  or  an  Irish  wheel  or  a  French 
roulet  volant  for  it  has  the  many  small  curved  buckets  and  not 
the  few  fiat  wood  paddle-blades  of  the  Norse  proper,  design  at  all. 
To  my  mind,  these  simple  spin  wheels — these  earliest  water 
wheel  forms,  are  merely  such,  and  universal,  of  every  name,  as 
locally  styled  and  used  in  various  languages  and  races  the  world 


NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA  179 

over;  and  I  view  the  term  Norse  wheel  as  only  a  local  designa- 
tion of  the  English  people,  who,  generally  using  the  more  ad- 
vanced overshot  wheels,  distinguished  by  the  name  of  "Norse" 
the  crude  small  form  of  their  near  neighbors  of  the  Scandinav- 
ian countries. 

In  ending  this  description  of  what  a  Norse  wheel  is,  it  may  be 
well  to  note  its  fundamental  difference  from  the  modern  turbine, 
of  which  some  think  it  an  early  form,  because  they  both  are  spin- 
wheels  and  both  work  upon  vertical  shafts.  A  Norse  wheel  is 
an  impact  wheel  only.  It  gets  its  power  from  the  velocity  and 
impact  of  a  shooting  stream  of  water,  coming  from  a  nozzle  or 
chute  opening,  close  to  the  blades.  Only  a  few  of  the  blades  are 
acted  upon  at  once  and  the  openings  or  waterways  between  the 
blades  are  never  entirely  filled  with  water.  The  wheel  is  always 
set  above  the  tail  water  and  the  incoming  water  has  a  free  exit 
into  the  open  air. 

In  a  turbine  on  the  contrary,  the  power  comes  not  from  im- 
pact, but  from  the  pressure  and  the  reaction  of  the  water.  All 
the  buckets  are  acted  upon  at  once.  The  waterways  are  always 
filled  with  water  under  pressure  and  the  wheel  is  set  in  the 
water,  not  in  the  open,  above  it. 

The  difference  in  efficiency,  with  the  same  amount  of  water 
and  head,  is  very  great.  In  the  primitive  impulse  horizontal 
wheels  it  is  about  twenty-five  to  forty  per  cent  of  the  water's 
energy,  that  is  secured  in  power,  while  in  a  modern  turbine  wheel 
it  is  two  and  one-half  or  three  times  as  much  or  sixty  to  eighty- 
five  per  cent.  So  that  while  these  Norse  wheels  are  the  simplest 
in  form  of  all  the  water  wheels  they  are  also  the  least  efificient. 
In  Scotland  they  are  also  called  "tirl  wheels",  and  it  is  interest- 
ing to  note  that  the  entire  class  of  these  horizontal  water  spin 
wheels,  in  which  the  water  runs  through  from  above,  are  also 
known  as  or  have  been  called  "Danaides" ;  so-called  from  the 
Greek  legend  of  the  fifty  daughters  of  Danaus,  who  slew  their 
husbands  and  in  Hades  later,  were  condemned  to  forever  pour 
water  through  sieves !  The  general  heft  of  these  mills  was  small. 
It  does  not  take  much  power  to  turn  a  small  grist  stone,  some- 
times but  little  larger  than  an  old  hand  quern.  So  we  find  that 
the  vertical  shaft  was  at  times  but  an  iron  rod  or  a  light  stick 
of  wood.     The  Carolina  form  has  a  wood  shaft  scarcelv  more 


180  NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA 

than  six  inches  in  diameter,  I  beHeve.  On  the  other  hand  in 
some  of  the  rugged  countries  so  to  speak,  a  heavy  crude  con- 
struction appears,  as  in  Norway,  where  the  vertical  shaft  is 
usually  made  of  a  tree  trunk  of  twelve  to  eighteen  inches  di- 
ameter. This  thickness,  of  course,  better  enables  the  mortising 
of  the  blade  boards.  However,  the  mill  stones  carried  are  nearly 
always  three  feet  or  less  in  diameter,  thirty  and  twenty-seven 
inches  being  common.  The  starting  and  stopping  of  these  mills 
was  usually  accomplished  by  a  simple  sluice  arrangement  for 
switching  the  brook  or  run  from  its  regular  course  outside  the 
little  mill  house,  to  the  new  channel  or  chute  running  through  it, 
or  vice  versa,  effected  by  some  boards  stuck  in  the  mud.-  The 
speed  of  these  wheels  is  about  a  hundred  revolutions  a  minute. 

A  step  in  advance  in  the  design  and  efficiency  of  a  Norse 
wheel  is  to  put  it  in  a  case  or  to  enclose  it  when  it  then  becomes 
a  "tub  wheel",  i.  e.  a  wheel  in  a  tub.  And  of  this  numerous  in- 
stances can  yet  be  found  along  the  coast  of  Maine,  in  which  state, 
in  the  past  they  have  been  extensively  used,  both  in  the  interior 
on  streams  and  on  the  shore  on  the  outlet  of  tidal  ponds.  Maine 
is  a  lumber  country  and  not  a  grain  growing  section  and  these 
mills  where  noted  by  me  were  usually  used  to  drive  saw  mills  by 
a  bevel  gear  from  the  top  of  the  vertical  shaft.  I  noted  several 
in  1917  at  East  Sullivan,  not  far  from  Bar  Harbor,  and  at  Goulds- 
boro,  Machias  and  Whiting,  along  the  Maine  coast,  in  an  auto- 
mobile trip  from  Bangor  to  St.  Andrews,  Canada;  as  well  as 
near  Oak  Bay  in  New  Brunswick,  five  or  six  miles  out  from 
St.  Stephens  on  the  road  to  St.  Andrews.  Other  wheels  of  this 
character  however  drove  gristmills  in  the  vicinity  of  Castine, 
Maine,  where  at  Goose  Falls  stood  a  good  example  at  a  tidal 
pond  until  burned  a  few  years  ago ;  at  Ame's  mill  pond,  where  a 
small  mill  building  still  stands,  though  with  stones  and  water 
wheel  gone ;  in  Lawrence  Bay,  where  a  pair  of  mill  stones  under 
water,  attest  the  one  time  presence  of  a  gristmill.  The  same  ap- 
plies to  the  outlet  of  Salt  Pond  in  the  South  Blue  Hill  region. 
And  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  in  my  mind  as  to  the  fact 
that  many  of  these  old  tub  wheels  can  yet  be  found  in  that  state. 

One  that  I  measured,  still  in  good  shape  but  not  now  in  use, 
though  used  to  drive  a  wood-working  factory,  in  even  recent 
years,  is  at  East  Orland  on  the  half-mile  water-way  or  outlet  run 


NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA  181 

from  Toddy  Pond,  into  Alamcosock  Pond  below,  some  eighteen 
miles  south  from  Bangor.  This  wheel  is  about  four  and  one- 
half  feet  diameter,  works  in  a  two-inch  plank  tub  case  about  seven 
feet  in  diameter,  and  has  six  plank  blades,  two  inches  thick  by 
about  twenty  inches  deep  and  twenty-four  inches  long.  These 
blades  are  bolted  on  to  six  faces  of  the  heavy  shaft  that  is  at  that 
part  made  hexagonal,  instead  of  being  mortised  into  the  shaft ; 
which  hexagonal  bolting  arrangement  makes  a  much  easier  and 
strong  construction.  Each  blade  moreover,  carries  a  small  apron 
of  wood,  bolted  to  it,  on  the  lower  edge  of  the  near  side  face  to 
hold  the  water  a  little  or  prevent  its  passing  through  too  fast.  The 
shaft  is  fourteen  inches  diameter  and  about  seven  or  eight  feet  to 
the  bevel  gear  above.  The  wheel  is  carried  on  a  sole  tree  or 
sole-hurst  that  has  no  adjustment,  as  there  is  no  grain  grinding 
variation.  This  is,  in  other  words,  a  heavy  sill  that  spans  the 
water  exit  or  tail  race.  The  inlet  water  comes  into  the  wheel 
through  the  usual  chute,  at  an  angle  of  about  thirty  degrees.  I 
believe  this  to  be  a  typical  wheel  of  the  Maine  district  of  the 
past  fifty  to  seventy-five  years  or  so,  and  as  stated,  it  is  a  Norse 
wheel  in  a  case  forming  a  "tub  wheel". 

What  Norse  mills  can  we  locate  in  our  Pennsylvania  history? 
The  records  show  that  the  Swedes  first  settled  on  the  Delaware 
river  at  what  is  now  Wilmington,  in  Delaware,  in  1638,  and  that 
a  later  expedition  from  Sweden  located  in  1643  a  few  miles 
further  up  on  Tinicum  Island,  now  Essington,  in  what  is  now 
Delaware  county,  Pennsylvania ;  and  that  this  expedition,  under 
the  command  of  Governor  Printz,  built  a  gristmill  on  Karakung, 
later  Mill,  (Reed's  map  of  Philadelphia,  1774),  now  Cobb's 
Creek.  The  location  is  well  established,  at  73rd  and  Woodland 
Avenue,  Philadelphia,  for  as  it  is  on  the  east  bank,  it  is.  in  what 
is  now  part  of  the  latter  city.  A  present  dam,  a  successor  dam 
to  the  original,  extends  across  the  creek,  a  couple  of  hundred 
feet  or  less,  above  the  bridge  over  the  creek,  and  immediately 
below  the  dam  is  a  ledge  of  rock  upon  which  the  mill  stood. 
Townsend  Ward,  in  his  article  "A  Walk  to  Darby"  of  1879  (in 
which  he  describes  the  things  of  interest  en  route),  states  that 
there  may  yet  be  seen  in  the  rock  "the  holes  drilled  in  which 
were  inserted  the  supports"  of  the  mill.  Benjamin  Ferris  in  his 
Original  Settlements  on  the  Delaware,"  p.  7i  (1846),  makes  the 


182  NORSE  MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA 

same  statement.  At  the  present  time  some  of  these  holes  can 
yet  be  located  to  the  tolerable  satisfaction  of  the  curious.  The 
premises  are  now  part  of  the  Cobb's  Creek  park  system  of  the 
City  of  Philadelphia,  and  within  a  few  score  of  yards  of  the  old 
Blue  Bell  tavern,  of  1766,  and  before,  a  prominent  stand  on  the 
old  post  road  or  Queen's  highway  or  Darby  road,  the  first  road 
between  Chester  and   Philadelphia. 

It  is  a  moral  certainty  that  the  mill  that  the  Swedes  built  here 
was  a  Norse  mill.  For  emigrants  always,  of  course,  logically 
built  in  the  new  country  the  form  of  mill  of  the  homeland  or  the 
district  whence  they  come.  Penn,  for  instance,  thirty-nine  years 
later  brought  English  mill  machinery  and  English  mills  started 
with  his  coming.  And  in  a  study  of  American  old  time  wind- 
mills, we  find  that  of  1710  at  Somerville,  Mass.,  a  French  type, 
because  built  by  Jean  Mallet,  a  French  emigrating  Hugenot; 
those  at  Detroit  by  the  French  settlers,  the  same ;  the  windmills 
at  Roanoke  Island,  North  Carolina,  and  elsewhere,  of  the  English 
form,  by  English  emigrants ;  those  in  Illinois,  of  the  1820's  and 
'30's  of  the  German  form,  by  the  influx  of  German  settlers,  etc., 
etc.  So  we  can  take  it  for  granted,  surely,  that  the  water  mill 
built  by  the  Swedes  on  the  old  rock  on  Cobb's  Creek,  was  a 
Scandinavian  type  of  mill  of  the  period  of  three  hundred  years 
ago,  in  other  words  a  "Norse"  mill,  in  form.  It  is  stated  by  sev- 
eral historians  that  it  was  erected  in  1643.  but  Amandus  John- 
son, who  has  gone  into  the  history  of  the  Swedish  settlements  on 
the  Deleware,  more  extensively  than  has  anyone  else,  gives  the 
date  as  "the  summer  of  autumn  of  1646."  This  mill  served  the 
colonists  well.  "It  was  a  fine  mill,  which  ground  both  line  and 
coarse  flour,  and  was  going  early  and  late"  and  was  far  more 
satisfactory  than  the  windmill  proceeding  it,  which  was  erected 
by  the  Swedes  at  Christiana  a  dozen  or  so  miles  below  the  Tini- 
cum  colony  in  1642,  and  of  which  it  was  said  by  Governor  Printz 
"It  would  never  work  and  was  good  for  nothing." 

The  records  show  that  twenty-five  years  after  its  erection, 
that  is  in  1671,  the  Cobb's  creek  or  Karakung  mill,  had  fallen 
into  decay ;  and  that  upon  complaint  by  the  colonists  to  Governor 
Lovelace,  it  was  ordered  that  it  be  repaired  and  restored  to  the 
public  use.  It  is  probable  that  this  mill  was  used  until  about 
1690  or  1700,  or  a  period  of  about  fifty  years,  when  an  English 


NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONL\L  TIMES   IN    PENNSYLVANIA  183 

settler,  named  William  Cobb,  bought  the  property,  and  a  later 
English  form  of  gristmill  was  erected  a  little  lower  down,  on 
what  then  became  "Cobb's  Creek"  and  it,  together  with  the  mills 
at  Darby,  not  far  away,  forever  superseded  it. 

It  has  been  thought  by  some  that  this  mill  built  by  Governor 
Printz  was  the  only  Swedish  mill  built  hereabouts.  It  was  the 
first  one  and  the  one  of  which  we  know  the  most  but  it  was  not 
the  only  one.     There  were  several  others  at  least. 

The  Swedish  control  stated  in  1638  and  continued  until  wrested 
from  them  by  the  Dutch  in  1655 — seventeen  years.  The  Dutch 
then  ran  things  on  the  Delaware  for  nine  years— until  1644, 
w^hen  the  English  came  along  and  ousted  them.  The  Dutch,  as 
far  as  control  went,  were  back  again  in  1672  but  for  two  years 
only.  Then  came  the  English  again,  under  the  Duke  of  York,  for 
eight  years  until  the  advent  of  Penn  in  1682;  a  total  of  thirty- 
nine  years  between  the  building  of  the  Cobb's  creek  first  Swedes 
mill  and  Penn's  time.  It  is  pretty  tolerably  certain  that  the  first 
English  mill,  was  that  brought  over  by  Penn  in  the  "Welcome" 
and  erected  by  Caleb  P'usey  on  Chester  creek,  in  the  present 
Borough  of  Upland.  The  kind  of  mills  built  before  his  time, 
are  more  or  less  surmise,  but  probability  is  a  strong  factor  in 
reaching  conclusions ;  and  as  the  Swedes  started,  settled  and 
populated,  and  for  the  first  time  dominated  that  section ;  and  as 
the  later  'incursions  of  the  Dutch  and  English,  before  Penn's 
time,  were  fitful,  brief  and  vicarious,  the  chances  are  that  the 
mills  between  1646  and  1683,  were  mostly  if  not  entirely  Swedish 
built,  "Norse"  type  mills.  Here  are  all  the  references  to  mills 
that  I  have  been  able  to  locate  in  that  period  and  you  can  reach 
your  own  conclusions  as  to  the  probable  nationality  and  design. 

(a)  Bishop,  in  his  History  of  American  Manufactures"  of 
1866,  says  that  there  were  at  least  four  saw  mills  in  operation  in 
Pennsylvania  before  Penn's  time.  Also,  that  the  Swedes  had  a 
mill  at  Frankfort,  before  the  coming  of  Penn. 

(b)  In  the  manuscript  department  of  the  Historical  Society 
of  Pennsylvania,  is  an  account  by  Charles  H.  Duffield,  June  1907, 
of  an  old  Swedish  mill  built  at  Frankfort,  thought  there  is  but 
scant  description  and  the  article  is  mostly  a  chain  of  title  data. 
The  mill  was  located  at  Frankford  Avenue  and  Mill  Streets, 
now  Vandyke   Street,  in  the  earliest  days.     The  property  con- 


184  NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA 

sisted  of  a  tract  of  two  hundred  acres  formerly  granted  to  the 
Swedes,  and  .was  transferred  to  Penn  in  1686,  and  was  then 
called  an  "old"  mill.  It  came  into  the  Duffield  family  in  1800  and 
was  burned  in  1835.  It  was  this  old  Swedes  mill,  1777  a  grist- 
mill, that  was  the  seat  of  the  episode  of  Lydia  Darrach ;  when 
after  overhearing  a  plan  of  the  British,  then  occupying  Phila- 
delphia, to  make  a  raid  on  the  patriot  forces,  she  sped  to  this 
mill  outside  the  city,  ostensibly  to  get  flour,  to  give  the  informa- 
tion to  the  patriots.  Watson,  in  his  Annals  of  Philadelphia,  73, 
says  that  the  Dufiheld  mill  at  Frankford,  was  originally  a  Swed- 
ish mill,  but  thinks  it  was  a  sawmill,  rather  than  a  gristmill. 

(c)  Johnson,  525,  states  that  Governor  Rising,  of  the  Swed- 
ish colony,  in  October  1654,  found,  "a  serviceable  little  water  fall 
for  a  sawmill,"  on  Naaman's  Kill  (which  is  the  creek  that  flows 
into  the  Delaware  about  at  the  circular  line  between  Pennsyl- 
vania and  Delaware.) 

(d)  In  1658,  soon  after  the  surrender  to  the  Dutch,  Joost 
Adriensen  &  Company  petitioned  for  the  right  to  build  a  saw  and 
gristmill  at  New  Amstel  (now  Newcastle,  Delaware),  below  the 
Turtle  Falls!  which  right  was  granted,  as  shown  by  the  Docu- 
mentary History  of  New  York,  210-368. 

(e)  In  the  summer  of  1662,  a  gristmill  was  built  by  John 
Staeloop,  Luyckas  Pietersen,  and  Hans  Black,  at  the  Falls  of 
the  Turtle  Kill,  Johnson  666. 

(f)  In  1661  the  Dutch  colony  at  New  Amstel  is  credited  in 
the  bookkeeping  and  accounts  with  New  York  with  a  pair  of 
mill  stones. 

(g)  In  1662,  in  a  list  of  articles  purchased  for  the  New 
Amstel  colony,  there  is  named  iron  work  for  a  saw  mill  and  a 
pair  of  mill  stones.  It  may  be  that  these  last  four  items  all  refer 
to  the  Turtle  Creek  mill. 

(h)  The  "Records  of  the  Court  at  Upland  show  that  in  1678 
"the  Co'rt  are  of  opinion  that  Capt'n  Hans  Moenson  ought  to 
build  a  mill"  on  a  creek  later  known  as  Little  Mill  Creek.  This 
is  the  creek  that  enters  the  Schuylkill  just  below  the  present 
Woodlands  cemetery  and  now  replaced  by  a  large  city  sewer. 
On  Scull  and  Heaps  map  of  1750  a  mill  is  shown  there  and  it  is 
likely  that  it  was  Moenson's. 

(i)     In   1679-80  the  Court  of  Upland  granted  permission  to 


NORSE   MILLS  OF  COLONIAL  TIMES   IN   PENNSYLVANIA  185 

one  Peter  Nealson,  to  take  up  a  hundred  acres  to  build  a  water 
mill  "on  the  west  side  of  the  Delaware". 

(j)  On  September  17,  1689,  seven  years  after  Penn's  time, 
the  members  of  the  Council  of  the  Colony  journeyed  to  New- 
castle, and  on  the  way,  from  Philadelphia,  presumably,  "took  a 
view  of  Mill  and  Race  Erected  by  Cornelius  Empson"  (Where- 
of Complaint  had  been  made  by  Petition  from  several  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Chester  County)  {Col.  Records,  Vol.  I,  301).  The 
name  Cornelius  Empson,  seems  rather  more  Swedish  than  Eng- 
lish.   The  location  I  have  not  ascertained. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  there  were  several  of  these  early 
Swedish-built  Norse  mills,  constructed  along  the  Delaware  be- 
tween New  Amstel  (or  Newcastle)  and  Christiania  and  Phila- 
delphia, in  the  twenty  or  thirty  years  from  1638,  in  which  the 
Swedes  were  active ;  and  before  Penn's  time.  Of  these,  the  one 
of  1646  on  Cobb's  creek,  is  the  one  best  known  and  established, 
and  as  first  stated,  it  is  the  one  that  would  seem  to  be  beyond 
doubt,  the  first  mill  of  any  sort  to  turn  a  wheel  in  what  is  now 
the  state  of  Pennsylvania.  This  fact  then  justifies  our  interest  in 
"What  is  a  Norse  mill?"  and  "Why  is  a  Norse  mill  of  interest 
to  us?" 


Horse  Hopples. 


BY    HENRY    W.    GROSS,    DOYLESTOWN,    PA. 


(Doylestown   Meeting,    January    18,    1919.) 


ON  Tuesday  last  I  was  at  Oak  Lane,  where  I  incidentally 
mentioned  to  a  young  man  that  I  was  expected  to  read  a 
paper  on  the  subject  of  "Horse  Hopples."     He  said  he 

had  never  heard  of  them  and  desired  to  know  what  they  were. 

I  soon  found  out  that  there  was  no  use  trying  to  get  any  in- 
formation concerning  them 
from  our  young  people,  be- 
cause they  simply  do  not 
know,  neither  did  the  editor 
of  Chamber's  Encyclopaedia. 
as  he  does  not  name,  or  re- 
fer in  any  way  to  the  term. 
They  did  not  live  in  the 
horse-hopple  age.  So  I  will 
ask  you  to  think  back  with 
me  to  an  earlier  generation ; 
to  the  time  when  we  had  no 
mowing  machines,  no  bind- 
ers of  grain,  no  grain  drills, 
no  fodder  shredders,  no 
cream  separators,  no  silos  or 
ensilage,  no  automobiles,  no 
wireless  telegraph  or  tele- 
phones and  no  areoplanes. 
A  time  when  there  were  but 
few  post  and  rail  fences  but 
mainly  stake  and  rider  fences 
and  stone  walls.  To  the  time 
when  the  men  and  boys 
were     commissioned     every 

spring,  with  grubbing  hoes  in  hand,  to  go  around  every  field  and 

repair  the   fences,   fastening  the   stakes  and  replacing  the  worn 


HORSE   HOPPLES  187 

out  riders  and  the  top  rail.  (Here  Mr.  Gross  started  quite  a  dis- 
cussion by  asking  the  audience  whether  any  of  them  had  done 
that.) 

Think  back  with  me  to  the  time  when  horses  and  cattle  were 
not  stabled,  not  kept-up  at  night  during  the  summer  season, 
but  were  turned  out  in  the  open  field  to  forage  until  early  dawn 
the  next  day.  Now  to  get  you  interested  in  this  out-of-date 
subject,  I  want  to  ask  you  a  few  questions  leading  up  from  the 
simple  to  the  more  complex,  from  the  known  to  the  unknown. 
How  many  of  you  present  today,  in  this  audience,  have  seen  a 
goose-yoke,  or  goose-yokle?  How  many  of  you  have  seen  a  hog- 
yoke,  and  why  is  it  called  a  yokle?  (Here  Mr.  Gross  exhibited 
goose  and  hog  yokes  which  brought  out  an  interesting  discus- 
sion.) Who  of  you  has  seen  a  cow's  head  or  neck  tied  or  chained 
down  to  one  of  her  fore  feet  ?  Why  and  how  was  that  done  ? 
Who  has  seen  a  post  or  part  of  a  rail  hanging  on  to  a  bull's  neck, 
and  why  was  that  done  ?  and  why  did  it  extend  out  in  front 
of  the  bull?  Who  has  seen  a  board  or  a  hood  over  the  eyes  of 
a  bovine  and  fastened  to  the  horns  with  twine  ?  Who  has  seen 
a  cow's  hind  legs  strapped  together,  or  a  rope  or  strap  tied 
around  her  body  in  front  of  her  udder,  or  a  rail  fastened  to  her 
stall  at  one  end  and  at  the  other  end  to  a  post  or  a  ring,  so  as  to 
crowd  the  cow  against  the  wall,  and  why  was  it  done?  Who  has 
seen  the  knee  of  one  front  leg  bent  and  a  strap  or  loop  pushed 
over  it  so  that  the  cow  had  to  stand  on  three  legs  instead  of  four? 

In  almost  every  herd  of  cattle  there  is  a  "leader"  that  has 
learned  how  to  open  a  rail  or  two  at  the  bars,  or  to  get  her 
head  through  the  fence,  or  pretend  to  be  rubbing  some  itchy 
spot,  when  in  reality  this  was  done  only  to  get  a  rail  or  two 
out  of  the  way  so  as  to  make  it  easy  to  crawl  through  or  push 
the  fence  over.  This  accomplished  it  is  surprising  to  see  how 
soon  every  animal  in  the  field  knows  of  the  opening,  and  with 
curled  tail  hurries  to  get  across  and  taste  new  and  better  or 
forbidden  pastures. 

You  may  have  seen  a  few  sheep  in  a  field,  and  one  of  them 
with  a  front  and  a  hind  foot  drawn  a  little  closer  together  than 
nature  intended,  and  were  tied  with  a  light  rope  or  a  strap. 
Why  was  that  necessary?  Simply  to  prevent  the  sheep  from 
scaling  the  stone  wall  surrounding  the  pasture  lot.     This  rope, 


188  HORSE   HOPPLES 

Strap  or  string,  to  which  I  have  referred  is  the  hopple  idea, 
though  not  the  link-iron  type  you  see  here  today.  This  article 
discarded  and  thrown  on  the  scrap-heap  some  years  ago  can 
scarcely  be  called  a  tool.  It  is  no  machine,  no  plaything,  no 
rattle,  though  the  links  do  rattle  when  in  use.  (Here  Mr.  Gross 
exhibited  several  hopples  from  the  museum  collection,  and  ex- 
plained their  different  types,  their  locks,  etc.)  These  hopples 
have  now  become  obsolete,  there  appears  to  be  no  use  for  any- 
thing like  them  now.  I  suppose  the  idea  of  their  use  was 
prompted  when  there  were  but  few  fences,  and  the  animals  were 
turned  loose  at  night,  and  their  movements  were  restricted  by 
something  of  this  kind,  so  as  to  give  them  a  wider  range  than 
when  tethered  to  a  stake  or  a  tree,  and  yet  not  to  be  miles  away  at 
the  dawn  of  the  next  day. 

Horse  hopples  of  these  types,  as  used  some  fifty  or  sixty  years 
ago,  may  have  been  to  restrict  the  movements  of  some  specially 
spirited  or  vicious  horse,  yet  in  the  main  they  were  used  in 
order  that  the  farmers  could  be  reasonably  certain  of  finding  their 
animals  the  following  morning  when  they  were  needed  to  start 
their  day's  work.  You  will  of  course  understand  that  in  those 
days  it  was  customary  to  unharness  the  horses,  feed  them  with 
grain,  and  then  turn  them  out  in  the  pasture-field  to  forage  for 
the  night  and  to  rest  towards  morning,  so  as  to  be  ready  and  at 
hand  for  another  day's  plowing,  harrowing  or  hauling.  But  it 
often  happened  that  when  a  farmer's  boy  went  for  his  horses 
early  in  the  morning,  they  could  not  be  found  in  the  pasture- 
fields,  having  strayed  away  during  the  night,  probably  to  be  found 
in  some  better  pasture,  often  doing  damage,  and  partly  ruining 
his  neighbor's  crops ;  this  stirred  up  strife  and  enmity  among 
neighbors,  and  moreover  the  delay  in  securing  the  "critters"  for 
several  hours,  valuable  time  was  wasted.  The  farmer's  boy 
came  back  tired,  took  more  time  to  explain  and  relate  his  ex- 
perience, with  a  report  of  the  damage  done.  This  took  more 
time  and  as  a  result  only  a  meagre  day's  work  was  done.  Fences 
destroyed  by  the  roaming  of  the  animals  had  to  be  repaired.  As 
"necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention",  here  is  where  the  horse- 
hopple  came  in. 

What  does  the  horse-hopple  do?  Have  you  ever  noticed  the 
movements  of  a  pacing  horse,  and  how  he  differs  from  trotting 


HORSE   HOPPLES  189 

horses?  The  pacing  horse  swings  his  body  first  to  one  side  then 
to  the  other  alternately.  The  hopple  compels  a  pacing  move- 
ment. It  embarrasses  and  interferes  with  free  action,  with  the 
result  that  the  animal's  forward  movement  is  slow,  and  besides 
it  prevents  him  from  jumping  fences.  He  stays  within  the  en- 
closure and  can  usually  be  found  when  wanted  in  the  morning. 
Tricks  of  fancy  always  have  a  leader,  get  him  and  you  will  soon 
have  the  whole  bunch. 

INFORMATION  OF  Q.  A.  FRETZ,  TOLL  GATHERER  AT  DUBLIN  TOLLGATE. 

In  Bedminster  township  during  the  early  fifties  horses  were 
hoppled  with  chain  hopples  (such  as  Mr.  Gross  has  describeed). 
With  quiet  horses  the  hopple  was  fastened  from  the  right  fore- 
leg to  the  right  hind-leg,  but  with  wilder  horses  it  was  attached 
from  the  right  fore-leg  to  the  left-hind  leg,  or  vice-versa.  The 
horses  were  at  pasture  over  night  in  fenced  fields,  and  hoppling 
was  done  to  prevent  them  from  jumping  fences  and  straying 
away  or  returning  home  during  the  night,  at  a  time  when  every- 
body was  asleep. 


Basket  Making. 

BY  GRIER  SCHEETZ,  BETHLEHEM,  PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  May  31,  1919.) 

BASKET  making  as  an  art  has  been  known  even  through 
the  misty  ages  of  long  ago.  Baskets  made  of  willow, 
rushes,  straw  and  even  wood-chips,  interwoven  with  linen 
cord  or  hickory  splints,  have  been  made  and  used  from  time  im- 
memorial. The  Israelites  were  commanded  to  make  an  offering  of 
the  first  fruits  of  the  earth  to  the  Almighty  in  a  basket.  Many 
of  the  baskets  used  by  rich  Jews  on  such  occasions  were  made 
of  gold,  silver  or  brass,  and  were  returned  to  the  offerers  by  the 
priests,  but  those  used  by  the  majority  of  people  were  made  of 
barked  willow  and  were  retained  by  the  priests.  Moses,  the 
great  law  giver,  as  a  babe  was  found  floating  upon  the  bosom  of 
the  river  Nile  in  a  basket  made  of  rushes,  while  the  Hebrew  spies 
at  Jericho  were  let  down  from  the  top  of  the  wall  of  the  city 
in  a  basket  by  Rahab  the  harlot.  The  process  of  basket  making 
is  simple  and  requires  few  tools.  The  art  appears  to  have  been 
known  among  the  rudest  people,  even  among  the  aboriginies  of 
Van  Dieman's  Land.  The  woven  straw  basket  is  made  of  se- 
lected rye  straw,  dampened  in  water,  then  woven  or  plaited  by 
hand  or  passed  through  a  tin  or  leather  tube  to  keep  it  of  uni- 
form thickness,  and  to  keep  it  thus,  more  straw  was  filled  in  the 
opposite  end  of  the  tube.  The  basket  is  started  from  the  bottom, 
making  the  smallest  circle  possible,  which  is  either  stitched  with 
linen  cord  or  hickory  splints,  using  three  or  four  turns  over  the 
straw  as  it  comes  through  the  tube  and  then  one  stitch  in  the 
second  strand,  firmly  drawing  both  together  until  the  bottom 
for  the  basket  had  become  the  required  size.  The  next  strand 
was  placed  on  edge  and  firmly  stitched  to  the  bottom  of  the 
basket.  This  continued  until  the  proper  height  had  been  reached, 
when  the  rim  was  put  on  and  the  handle  fastened,  stitching  on 
or  wrapping  the  body  of  the  basket  to  the  rim  with  linen  cord  or 
hickory  splints.  Hats,  bread  baskets,  sewing  baskets,  bee-hives 
were  made  of  straw  in  the  same  way.  I  am  informed  by  Peter 
Stauffer,  librarian  at  the  Lehigh  University,  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  that 


BASKET    MAKING  191 

his  father,  Jacob  Staufifer,  and  his  grandfather,  Charles  Stauffer, 
who  was  born  in  1786,  and  Hved  to  the  age  of  ninety  years  were 
both  basket-makers,  and  when  a  boy  he  helped  them  in  their 
work  of  basket  making.  Peter  Stauffer  is  now  seventy  years  of 
age,  and  to  him  I  am  indebted  for  much  of  the  information  which 
I  have  gathered  on  basket  making.  His  grandfather,  with  the 
families  of  Sloyers,  Seiferts  and  Reichards,  settled  on  what  was 
known  as  Swabian  Hill,  a  spur  of  South  Mountain,  or  as  the 
Pennsylvania-Germans  called  it  "Schwova  Barick".  This  place 
is  in  Lower  Saucon  township,  Northampton  county,  about  one 
mile  north  of  the  Bucks  county  line.  Most  of  the  settlers  of  that 
neighborhood  were  immigrants  from  Swabia,  Germany,  and 
many  of  them  were  basket  makers. 

While  it  was  a  privilege  to  Peter  Stauffer,  when  a  boy,  to 
assist  both  his  grandfather  and  father  to  finish  the  baskets,  he 
also  learned  the  treatment  required  of  the  material  of  which  the 
baskets  were  constructed.  His  grandfather  would  go  into  the 
forest  and  select  the  finest  young  hickory  trees  he  could  find, 
about  six  inches  in  diameter.  These  he  would  cut  into  lengths 
of  from  three  to  four  feet  and  then  place  them  into  a  pit  filled 
with  prepared  clay  and  w^ater.  This  hickory  was  allowed  to  re- 
main in  the  pit  for  months  or  until,  by  the  action  of  the  solution 
it  became  soft  and  pliable,  when  it  would  be  split  with  wedges, 
and  then  shaved  into  splints  with  a  drawing-knife  often  as  thin 
as  a  sheet  of  paper,  the  annealing  made  it  so  tough  that  it  could 
not  be  broken.  This  also  was  the  kind  of  splint  (but  of  smaller 
sizes)  used  to  sew  the  straw  baskets.  The  splint  baskets  were  made 
as  follows :  First,  the  handle  and  rim  were  made,  the  handle 
running  around  the  bottom  of  the  basket  and  the  rim  held  in 
position  by  a  small  nail  or  wooden  peg  driven  through  the  handle, 
which  held  both  rim  and  handle  in  place.  The  splints  contained 
in  the  baskets  varied  from  one-half  to  one  inch  in  width,  ac- 
cording to  the  size  of  the  baskets.  The  splints  were  all  tapered 
to  a  sharp  point,  the  center  splint  being  the  longest,  and  each  fol- 
lowing splint  was  shorter.  The  pointed  ends  were  then  brought 
up  to  the  handle  and  firmly  woven  together  around  the  handle 
with  the  thin  splints  shaved  from  the  treated  hickory  wood.  The 
body  of  the  basket  was  well  secured  and  made  strong  and  firm  by 
the  plaiting  of  the  splints.     The   bottoms   of   the   baskets   were 


192  BASKET    MAKING 

fortified  by  two  extra  pieces  of  half  inch  wood,  to  strengthen  and 
protect  them  against  the  special  wear  to  which  the  bottoms  were 
subjected.  Willow  baskets  were  made  in  practically  the  same 
way,  except  that  the  young  wnllows  or  switches  were  cut  in  early 
spring,  tied  in  bundles  like  wheat  and  placed  upon  end,  from 
whence  they  were  taken  to  the  shop  or  shed  and  the  bark  stripped 
off  by  drawing  the  switches  between  two  knives  set  upon  end, 
the  top  space  being  a  little  wider  through  which  the  switches 
were  drawn.  When  the  bark  was  stripped  from  them  they 
were  ready  for  using.  A,s  a  boy  I  remember  basket-makers  carry- 
ing a  large  number  of  different  sized  baskets  upon  their  backs, 
peddling  them  from  house  to  house  and  offering  them  for  sale. 


Notes  on  Basket  Making 

BY  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER. 
WILLOW  BASKETS    MADE  BY  A.   BETHTRAIN. 

The  following  information  was  obtained  from  Mr.  A.  Beth- 
train  of  Dublin,  Bucks  county,  Pa.,  August  2,  1919. 

Mr.  Bethtrain  w^as  born  in  Alslben,  Saxony,  where  he  learned 
his  trade.  He  has  been  in  this  country  thirty-six  years,  coming 
here  in  1883  when  twenty  years  old.  At  the  present  time  he  has 
an  "ozier  holt"  or  field  of  German  willows  growing  on  the  farm 
of  Abraham  Gross  near  Griers  Hill,  Dublin,  which  he  planted 
several  years  ago.  He  uses  Welsh  or  German  willows  of  one 
year's  growth  for  the  baskets  and  two  years  growth  for  the 
handles.  He  uses  rattan  from  the  Philippine  Islands,  or  China 
or  other  near  east  places  for  the  bottoms  of  huckster's  baskets, 
also  for  large  baskets  and  for  reinforcing.  Willow  shoots  can 
be  cut  from  old  trees  or  pollards  but  it  is  better  to  have  an  ozier 
holt.  A  visit  to  his  patch  showed  suckers  a  year  or  two  old,  but 
no  thick  stems  or  trunks.  'The  stumps  were  bristling  with  stems 
of  previous  cuttings  level  with  the  ground.  He  said  there  w^as 
a  willow  nursery  at  Edgely  on  the  Delaware  river  between  Bristol 
and  Tullytown,  Pa.,  containing  twenty  acres  of  young  shoots, 
also  that  lots  of  willows  were  grown  and  made  into  baskets  at 


BASKET    MAKING  193 

Syracuse,  N.  Y.,  Baltimore,  Md.,  and  in  Illinois  nurseries.  Mr. 
Bethtrain  says  he  made  nothing  but  willow  baskets  either  in  Ger- 
many or  in  America.  He  sells  his  product  in  Philadelphia  and 
locally.  He  said  that  making  splint  baskets  was  a  different  trade, 
but  he  knew  that  in  Germany  they  were  made  of  European  white 
ash  and  in  America  of  white  oak  and  hickory.  Oak  is  the  best 
of  all  if  carefully  selected  and  without  knots.  White  oak  baskets 
last  longer  than  hickory  ones. 

For  basket  making  willow  sprouts  or  shoots  are  cut  in  March, 
tied  in  bundles  likes  sheaves,  placed  in  water  two  or  three  inches 
deep  in  a  marsh  until  June,  by  which  time  they  have  grown 
about  two  inches  more  and  the  bark  is  green,  soft  and  tender  and 
peels  readily.  They  must  not  be  placed  too  deep  in  the  marsh 
water  else  it  darkens  the  wood.  The  peeling  of  bark  by  ma- 
chinery has  been  tried  but  proved  a  failure.  A  clamp  or  vise 
called  a  "brake"  tightened  with  a  wedge  in  the  bottom,  then 
stood  upright  in  a  bench,  the  willow  shoots,  fresh  from  the 
marsh,  are  pulled  through  between  the  jaws  of  the  clamps,  first 
one  end  and  then  the  other,  thus  peeling  or  stripping  them  free 
of  the  green  bark  at  two  pulls.  Mr.  Bethtrain  worked  for  Michael 
Frohman  near  Hilltowm  Church  in  1884  and  1885.  Mr.  Froh- 
man  was  then  seventy-five  years  old  and  had  made  willow  baskets 
for  years.  The  clamps  presented  to  this  society  by  Mr.  Bethtrain, 
were  used  by  him  for  carrying  cans  of  milk  to  the  creamery  on 
his  back.  Frames  are  used  for  forming  the  willow  baskets, 
square  ones  for  square  baskets  and  round  ones  for  round  bottom 
baskets.  Small  fine  baskets  are  made  of  split  willow.  He  first 
splits  the  end  of  the  willow  rod  for  an  inch  or  so  with  a  knife  and 
then  separates  it  with  a  tool  made  of  ivory,  bone  or  wood,  called 
a  "cleaver".  These  tools  are  made  three  or  four  sided  so  as  to 
split  or  divide  the  willow  into  that  number  of  strands.  These  are 
then  dipped  into  a  tub  of  water  to  prevent  breaking  and  then  run 
through  a  "shaver",  a  small  plane-like  tool  which  shaves  the 
strands  smooth  and  even.  A  small  leather  guard  is  placed  on  the 
thumb,  holding  the  strand  down  against  the  plane.  A  four  split 
cleaver  is  seldom  used  as  it  makes  the  strands  too  fine  for 
ordinary  use. 

The  set  of  basket  making  tools  brought  to  the  museum  was 
owned  by  Michael  Frohman  of  Hilltown  and  later  used  by  Mr. 


194  BASKET    MAKING 

Bethtrain.  Another  tool  called  a  "hammer",  a  flat  bar  of  iron 
tapering  towards  the  handle,  with  a  hole  in  the  end,  is  used  to 
hammer  the  strands  between  the  ribs  of  the  basket,  and  the 
crooked  can  be  bent  straight  by  running  them  into  the  hole  of  the 
hammer  and  twisting  in  the  right  way.  This  tool,  used  by  Mr. 
Bethtrain,  was  brought  from  Germany.  The  shaver  mentioned 
above  is  called  "hobel"  in  Germany,  and  the  knife  is  adjustable 
with  thumb  screw  to  regulate  the  size  of  the  finished  strand. 
The  thumb  guard  is  always  of  leather,  these  two  in  the  museum 
were  used  by  Michael  Frohman  for  many  years.  In  forming  the 
baskets  Mr.  Bethtrain  used  a  board  about  sixteen  inches  square 
upon  which  having  placed  the  already  woven  bottom  of  the  basket 
,  he  next  drove  four  pointed  thin  iron  rods  at  the  four  corners, 
the  top  of  which  rods  held  the  frame  or  form,  around  which  he 
then  wove  the  basket.  In  order  to  turn  this  conveniently  while 
working,  the  board  was  perforated  with  a  center  hole,  through 
which,  and  through  the  wicker  bottom  placed  thereon,  he  drove 
a  pointed  heavy  awl  or  bodkin  into  a  still  larger  knee  board 
about  two  by  three  feet,  which  rested  on  his  knee  while  working. 
This  enabled  him  to  conveniently  turn  the  basket  around  as  he 
proceeded.  The  small  board  revolving  upon  the  large  one  thus 
pivoted  under  it.  Some  basket-makers,  however,  dispense  with 
the  knee  board.  Mr.  Bethtrain  may  be  the  only  wicker  basket- 
maker  in  Bucks  county  at  this  time.  He  works  in  a  rather  large 
modern  frame  shop  between  his  barn  and  house,  with  vestibule, 
workroom  and  garret.     The  workroom  is  heated  with  a  stove. 

SPLINT  BASKETS   MADE  BY  PETER  WEIRBACH. 

The  following  notes  were  made  by  Dr.  Mercer,  August  2,  1919, 
upon  visiting  the  shop  of  Peter  Weirbach,  near  Mountain  House, 
Haycock,  Bucks  county.  Pa. 

The  white  oak  used  is  cut  in  November  and  December,  con- 
sisting of  little  shoots  cut  close  to  the  ground  or  suckers  from 
four  to  eight  inches  in  diameter.  These  are  cut  in  lengths  of  four 
feet  then  quartered.  Each  quarter  is  placed  upright  in  a  trestle 
made  of  a  forked  tree-trunk  such  as  is  used  for  splitting  shingles. 
The  split  quarters  are  then  split  into  thin  strips  with  a  "frow". 
The  strips  are  then  placed  in  a  "shoeing-horse",  and  squared  up 
with  a  drawing  knife  then  chisel  or  start  a  strip  one-half  inch 


CASKET    MAKING  195 

thick  and  separate  with  the  hands  the  full  length  of  the  quarter 
piece  and  then  reduce  these  strips  still  more  by  starting  with  a 
knife  and  separating  as  above  until  almost  the  proper  thickness 
for  the  basket.  Run  them  through  the  basket-maker's  shave,  a 
steel  blade  fastened  to  a  wooden  block  and  regulated  according 
to  thickness  desired  by  turning  a  thumb-screw,  thus  shaving  the 
split  smooth  and  thin.  Then  make  a  round  edge  or  rim,  nailing 
handle  on  to  rim  which  overlaps  and  is  nailed  together  at  the  bot- 
tom with  two  or  three  wrought  nails,  clinched.  Start  to  make  at 
one  side  against  the  handle,  continuing  around  to  the  other  side 
against  the  handle,  using  heavy  shaped  ribs.  Then  weave  the 
smaller  strips  around  the  ribs.  The  strips,  before  platting  are 
boiled  for  half-an-hour  to  make  them  more  pliable  and  tough. 
The  heavy  ribs  and  handle  are  not  boiled.  No  special  shaving- 
horse  is  necessary.  '  The  shaver  is  the  only  special  tool  used.  An 
awl  is  used  to  perforate  strands  for  inserting  thin  wrapping 
strands  around  edge,  etc.  Mr.  Weirbach  made  round  bottomed 
handled  baskets  and  flat  bottomed  bushel  baskets  with  and  with- 
out handles.     He  always  used  white  oak. 

The  house  Mr.  Weirbach  worked  in  was  built  of  logs  about 
sixty  years  ago,  probably  by  his  father  or  earlier.  It  is  about 
eighteen  by  thirty  feet,  with  two  rooms  down  stairs  and  a  garret 
above.  The  one  entrance  door  is  in  the  room  nearest  to  the  house. 
It  is  not  heated  and  no  fireplace  was  ever  constructed  there. 
There  is  a  small  brick  flue  in  the  middle  for  smoke  of  a  small 
ten-plate  stove  in  the  shop  wing  nearest  the  house.  The  par- 
tition is  made  of  boards.  Shop  has  one  window  on  the  north 
side,  two  on  the  east,  and  two  on  the  south  side.  The  ceiling  is 
of  hewn  beams,  very  wide  apart.  Stepladder  to  garret  in  shop 
with  sliding  trap-door  overhead.  The  work-bench  stands  on  the 
east  side  of  work-shop.  Mandrel  and  turning  lathe  before  north 
window  back  of  stove.  His  brother's  shoemaker's  bench  and  tools 
are  near  the  door  by  the  window  in  the  southwest  corner.  The 
logs  of  the  house  are  squared,  notched  and  champered,  sawed 
square  corners.  Slats  nailed  across  ceiling-beams  to  hold  tools, 
stick,  etc.  Drawing  knife  horse  in  shop.  Frow  in  entrance 
room.  Shop  quite  dark,  vines  obstructing  light  from  windows. 
Did  not  examine  structure  of  log  shop.  Shingled  with  riven 
shingles  made  by  Peter  Weirbach  and  lathed  and  plastered  with 


196  BASKET    MAKING 

clay  inside  of  shop.  Cut  nails  used  of  which  one  specimen  was 
obtained.  Built  originally  for  a  shop  and  not  as  a  dwelling.  No 
sign  of  ancient  pottery  remaining. 

Mr.  Weirbach  and  his  sister  reluctantly  sold  us  five  baskets, 
one  large  and  four  small  ones,  at  high  prices  for  the  museum. 
His  sister  thought  he  was  too  old  to  make  more  on  order  during 
the  coming  winter.  The  five  baskets  bought  and  placed  in  the 
museum  are  as  follows :  Museum  No.  16359,  $5.00 ;  Nos.  16360, 
16361,  16362,  at  $1.50  each,  and  No.  16363  at  $2.00. 

COMMENT.  BY  DR.  B.   F.   FACKENTHAL,  JR. 

When  I  was  a  small  boy  attending  public  school  (1857  to 
1866)  at  Monroe  in  Durham  township  I  daily  passed  by  the  basket 
making  shop  of  Jacob  Gray  at  Monroe.  I  stopped  in  his  shop 
hundreds  of  times.  He  was  a  kindly,  genial  old  man  always 
ready  with  a  story  to  tell  us  boys.  He  made  baskets  of  the  butts 
of  white  oak  trees  of  which  he  always  kept  a  good  stock  on 
hand.  I  have  no  recollection  of  seeing  any  butt  less  than  about 
six  inches  in  diameter.  I  remember  quite  well  that  he  bought 
and  cut  a  number  of  young  white  oak  trees  from  my  grand- 
father's woods.  He  did  not  use  any  material  for  baskets  other 
than  oak,  but  he  did  use  hickory  for  making  splint  brooms.  His 
operation  was  very  much  like  Mr.  Weirbach's  operations  de- 
scribed by  Dr.  Mercer.  He  always  quartered  the  butts,  and  then 
with  special  tools  split  the  quarters  into  splints.  Much  of  his 
time  seemed  to  be  taken  up  with  his  drawing-knife  and  shaving 
horse  preparing  the  splints  for  weaving.  His  shop  was  often 
full  of  shavings.  To  watch  him  prepare  the  splints  and  weave 
them  into  baskets  was  to  me  always  most  interesting.  He  made 
baskets  of  many  kinds  and  sizes,  but  his  principal  trade  was  mak- 
ing feed  baskets  for  the  boatmen  on  the  Delaware  Division  canal, 
which  flowed  close  by  his  shop.  These  feed  baskets  were  strapped 
around  the  heads  of  the  mules,  who  were  required  to  eat  their 
oats  from  them  while  towing  the  boats.  It  was  said  that  he 
made  the  very  best  quality  of  baskets  put  upon  the  market,  and 
the  boatment  often  had  to  wait  their  turns  to  have  their 
orders  filled. 


Early  Pennsylvania  Pottery. 

BY  WILLIAM  E.   MONTAGUE,  NORRISTOWN,  PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  May  31,  1919.) 

THE  richly  ornamented  pottery  of  civilized  nations,  which 
for  two  centuries  or  more,  preceded  the  manufacture  of 
porcelain,  possesses  a  peculiar  fascination  for  collectors  and 
students  of  ceramic  art.  On  account  of  the  boldness  of  treat- 
ment and  the  quality  of  manly  vigor,  it  shows  the  first  awaken- 
ing of  the  artistic  instinct  among  a  simple  hearted  people,  who 
in  the  engrossing  struggle  for  subsistence  had  little  opportunity 
for  improving  their  surroundings. 

The  history  of  pottery,  if  it  should  be  written,  would  be  as 
old  as  the  history  of  man.  Baking  clay  and  making  vessels  is 
one  of  the  first  useful  arts  in  the  history  of  all  peoples,  savage 
as  well  as  civilized.  Clay,  mingled  with  sand  and  wet  with  water, 
can  be  moulded  into  any  desired  shape.  Baking  expels  the 
water  and  infuses  the  sand  and  clay,  and  the  result  is  a  compact 
substance.  This  can  be  painted  with  any  color  that  will  not 
change  from  heat,  and  when  baked,  the  forms  will  become  deco- 
rated pottery.  This  art,  known  as  the  ceramic  art,  affords  op- 
portunity for  the  modeller  and  the  painter,  and  has  been  practiced 
by  all  nations  in  all  times.  It  furnishes  a  most  important  illustra- 
tion of  the  taste,  education  and  comparative  civilization  of  the 
dififerent  peoples.  The  decorations  placed  upon  it,  such  as  pic- 
tures, mottoes,  names  and  records  of  various  kinds,  makes  it  of 
the  highest  importance  in  historic  art.  In  all  nations,  where  civili- 
zation has  reached  a  high  grade,  the  best  artists  have  been  em- 
ployed in  the  decoration  of  pottery  and  porcelain  as  well  as  the 
best  modellers  in  producing  forms  of  beauty,  thus  uniting  the 
work  of  the  painter  and  the  sculptor.  The  art  takes  high  rank 
among  the  fine  arts,  hence  great  attention  has  been  paid  to  it  by 
archeologists  and  lovers  of  the  beautiful.  The  color  of  all  pottery 
depends  upon  the  ingredients  of  the  clay. 

Pottery  is  of  two  kinds,  soft  and  hard.  Soft  pottery  yields 
easily  to  the  point  of  a  knife,  while  hard  resists  it.  Soft  pottery 
melts  at  a  much  lower  temperature   than   hard.     The   common 


198  EARLY    PENNSYLVANIA    POTTERY 

building  brick  is  the  simplest  illustration  of  soft  pottery  while 
the  fire  brick  is  the  simplest  illustration  of  hard  pottery.  In  the 
study  of  the  cermaic  art,  soft  pottery  is  usually  divided.  First, 
unglazed  pottery,  the  result  of  baking  clay  without  surface  var- 
nish or  glaze.  Second,  lustrous  pottery,  a  name  applied  to  a  large 
class  of  objects  which  have  a  shining  surface,  produced  by  a  thin 
varnish  or  coating,  which  reflects  light,  but  is  sometimes  perme- 
able to  water.  Third,  glazed  pottery,  which  is  covered  with  a 
thick  shining  surface  produced  by  the  use  of  lead  or  by  the 
union  of  alkaline  substances  with  lead  in  the  clay.  Fourth, 
enamelled  pottery,  covered  with  a  coating  of  enamel  in  which  tin 
is  employed,  hence  the  word  "Stanniferous",  and  which  being 
baked  receives  a  surface  decoration  of  dififerent  substance  from 
the  pottery,  and  more  or  less  thick  which  is  of  a  vitrous  character, 
resisting  acid  and  not  permeable  to  water. 

The  larger  part  of  all  ancient  pottery  is  included  in  the  first 
three  classes.  Most  modern  pottery,  Italian,  French,  German, 
Dutch  and  other  ware  known  as  "Majolica"  and  "Fayence"  is 
soft  pottery  enamelled.  Fayence  is  a  term  derived  from  Fayenza, 
an  Italian  city  where  decorative  pottery  was  largely  made  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  in  the  present  general  sense  includes  all 
pottery  enamelled  and  decorated  with  color. 

The  term  "ceramic",  includes  all  works  in  pottery,  porcelain 
and  stone  ware,  and  is  derived  from  the  Greek  word,  signifying 
potter's  clay,  earthen  vases,  etc.  Porcelain,  like  pottery,  is  a  pro- 
duct of  clay  and  sand,  but  the  clay  is  of  a  class  that  with  the  ad- 
dition of  other  substances  produces  a  translucent  body.  Pottery 
is  always  opaque ;  porcelain  always  translucent ;  pottery  breaks 
with  a  rought  fracture,  exhibiting  the  color  of  clasp ;  porcelain 
breaks  with  a  vitrous  fracture,  white  and  clean. 

PENNSYLVANIA    POTTERY. 

Among  the  forms  of  utensils  and  other  objects  produced  in 
Eastern  Pennsylvania  were  cooking  pots,  with  and  without  lids, 
and  usually  with  two  handles.  They  were  glazed  on  the  inside 
and  often  also  on  the  outside.  Applebutter  pots,  flower  pots, 
cake,  jelly  and  other  molds,  jugs,  jars  (both  spherical  and  cylindri- 
cal usually  with  lids  and  with  or  without  handles),  coffee  pots, 
sugar  bowls,  cream  pitchers,  tea  cannisters,  mugs,  liquid  meas- 


EARLY    PENNSYLVANIA    POTTERY  199 

ures,  vegetable  and  meat  plates,  pie  plates,  bowls,  platters,  soup 
dishes,  large  circular  pans,  (usually  with  sloping  sides  and  flat 
bases),  fancy  dishes  or  trays,  ink  stands,  sand  shakers,  stove 
foot-rests,  tobacco  pipes,  tobacco  jars,  shaving  basins,  flower 
holders  or  vases,  toys,  figures  of  animals,  birds,  whistles,  etc. 
Also  earthen  barrels  for  holding  water,  churns,  and  roof  tiles. 
Most  of  these  articles  were  made  simply  of  red  clay  and  glazed 
with  red  lead,  and  were  used  for  all  imaginable  purposes  in  the 
household. 

The  introduction  of  tin  and  other  wares  gradually  supplanted 
the  work  of  the  early  potter,  and  but  one  or  two  shops  yet  re- 
main, and  these  are  devoted  largely  to  the  manufacture  of 
flower  pots,  which  are  now  produced  by  machinery. 

SLIP    DECORATIVE    WARE. 

Among  the  earliest  ornamented  ware  of  Europe  was  that  which 
is  known  as  Slip  Decorative  Ware,  which  consisted  of  two  classes, 
slip-traced  or  slip-painted  and  slip-engraved,  scratched  or  sgraf- 
fito ware.  Slip  is  made  of  a  clay  different  from  the  body  of  the 
pottery  to  which  it  is  applied.  It  is  produced  by  grinding  suitable 
clay  in  a  quern  or  between  two  stones  and  is  then  thinned  with 
water  to  the  desired  consistency,  usually  like  batter  or  cream ; 
it  is  of  a  lighter  tint  than  the  coarse  clay  of  the  pottery  to  which 
it  is  applied,  the  pottery  being  generally  of  a  dark  orange  or  red 
color.  Slip  tracing  consists  of  trickling  this  liquid  clay  or  "slip", 
through  one  or  sometimes  two  or  three  quills  attached  to  a  little 
cup  over  the  surface  of  the  unburned  ware  to  produce  the  deco- 
rative design.  Slip  engraving  consists  in  covering  the  ware  with 
a  thin  coating  of  slip,  through  which  the  ornamental  designs  are 
scratched  with  a  pointed  instrument  to  show  the  darked  clay  be- 
neath. In  a  general  way  it  may  be  said  that  true  slip  decoration 
is  usually  distinguished  by  a  light  colored  ornamentation  on  a 
darker  ground,  while  sgraffito  ware  is  recognized  by  the  dark 
design  on  a  white  or  yellow  field.  In  the  former  the  decorations 
generally  appear  in  slight  relief,  and  in  the  latter  they  are  im- 
pressed or  intalglioed.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  many 
of  the  early  English  slip-traced  and  scratched  pieces,  the  princi- 
pal decorative  motif  is  the  tulip,  which  fact  suggests  the  possi- 
bility that  the  art  of  slip  decoration  was  introduced  into  England 


200  EARLY    PENNSYLVANIA    POTTERY 

from  Germany.  The  use  of  this  flower  in  ceramic  embelHsh- 
ments  probably  originated  in  Persia  and  later  spread  to  conti- 
nental Europe.  In  Pennsylvania  sgraffito  ware  was  first  made 
as  early  as  1733,  as  is  indicated  by  an  interesting  example  in  the 
collection  of  Mr.  George  H.  Banner,  Manheim,  Pa.,  which  is 
engraved  with  that  date. 

It  is  more  than  possible  that  for  several  years  previous  to  that 
time,  the  transplanted  art  had  flourished  in  this  country.  It  is 
certain  that  slip  decoration  was  in  vogue  in  certain  parts  of 
Gremany,  notably  in  Saxony,  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago, 
and  when  the  first  Germans  settled  in  Pennsylvania  they  brought 
the  art  with  them  and  established  it  as  a  new  process  of  the 
ceramic  manufacture  in  the  states. 

In  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  slip  decorative 
ware  was  made  to  a  considerable  extent  in  certain  localities  in 
England,  but  the  early  English  potters  do  not  seem  to  have  pur- 
sued this  branch  of  their  calling  to  any  extent  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic. 

The  reason  for  this  is  obvious,  while  the  English  came  from 
many  sections  previous  to  the  full  development  of  this  art  at 
home  and  scattered  over  vast  territory  in  this  country,  the  Ger- 
mans arriving  at  a  later  date,  fresh  from  a  section  where  slip 
decorative  ware  was  at  its  height,  established  a  community  of 
their  own  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania,  isolated  from  all  extraneous 
influences,  and  continued  to  ply  their  homely  arts  as  they  had 
learned  them  in  the  old  world. 

These  pioneer  potters  erected  numerous  small  pot  works  for 
the  manufacture  of  such  wares  as  were  needed  to  supply  the 
simple  wants  of  the  people.  Each  local  pottery  seems  to  have 
been  supported  by  the  patronage  of  relatives,  neighbors  and 
friends  of  the  proprietor,  or  by  sales  which  were  held  in  neigh- 
boring towns,  and  as  the  trade  was  confined  almost  entirely  to 
the  limited  section  occupied  by  the  settlers,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  these  German-American  productions  have  only  recently  at- 
tracted attention. 

The  commonest  kind  of  slip  decoration  can  be  seen  in  the 
zigzag  lines  frequently  met  with  on  the  pie  plates  of  commerce 
and  are  true  slip  decoration.  Slip  decoration  in  its  primitive 
state  is  now  a  lost  art  in  the  United  States.    It  flourished,  princi- 


EARLY    PENNSYLVANIA    POTTERY  201 

pally  in  Pennsylvania,  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half.  Its 
decadence  commenced  with  the  advent  of  tin  and  when  the 
cheaper  grades  of  white  crockery  began  to  be  introduced  the 
production  of  the  early  potter  ceased.  Slip  decoration  was  the 
forerunner  of  the  modern  art  of  painting  on  the  unbaked  ware 
with  colored  clay  as  exemplified  in  the  Rookvvood  pottery  of  the 
present  day.  Its  highest  development  is  found  in  the  Pate-sur- 
pate  process  as  practiced  by  Mr.  M.  L.  Solon  at  the  Minton  fac- 
tory in  England,  who  is  recognized  today  as  the  greatest  ex- 
ponent of  this  beautiful  art. 

PORCELAINS   IN   AMERICA. 

In  1825.  "one  Tucker,  who  was  the  son  of  a  Quaker  china 
shopkeeper  on  Market  street,  between  Ninth  and  Tenth,  Phila- 
delphia, took  over  the  old  waterworks  at  Twenty-third  and  Chest- 
nut streets,  and  started  in  a  small  way  to  produce  artistic  porce- 
lain." His  work  was  recognized  speedily  as  the  best  of  its  kind 
in  the  United  States.  The  Franklin  Institute  awarded  him 
several  medals  as  a  tribute  to  his  skill.  His  porcelain  was  com- 
pared favorably  with  the  Sevres  product,  and  an  effort  was  made, 
during  the  presidency  of  Andrew  Jackson,  to  obtain  a  Federal 
subsidy  of  several  thousand  dollars.  The  president  acknowledged 
the  receipt  of  the  gift  of  Tucker's  ware,  but  declined  to  favor 
the  subsidy.  He  marveled  at  its  excellence  and  said  it  was  the 
equal  of  Sevres.  Judge  Joseph  Hemple  became  a  partner  of 
Tucker  and  a  larger  plant  was  secured  at  the  southwest  corner 
of  Seventh  and  Chestnut  streets.  French  artists  were  brought 
over  and  close  copies  of  the  Sevres  product  were  made.  The 
best  ware  was  produced  from  1833  to  1838.  Hemple  associated 
a  number  of  other  Pennsylvanians  in  the  enterprise  and  obtained 
a  charter  from  the  legislature  under  the  corporate  name  of  the 
American  Porcelain  Company.  Their  koalin  was  obtained  from 
Chester  County,  Pa.,  their  feldspar  from  New  Castle,  Del.,  and 
their  clay  from  Perth  Amboy,  N.  J.  Authority  was  given  to  the 
corporation  to  import  the  best  artists,  and  many  articles  of  artis- 
tic porcelain  were  produced,  but  in  1838  the  business  was 
discontinued. 

The  ornamented  plates  and  other  pieces  both  slip  and  sgraffito 


202  WELL-CAVES    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

which  you  have  before  you  today, ^  were  not  made  commercially, 
but  were  usually  made  for  presents,  the  husband  to  his  wife,  the 
apprentice  to  his  employer,  or  the  lover  to  his  lady.  Many  of 
the  decorated  pieces  found  today,  belong  to  the  heirs  and  rela- 
tives of  the  potters,  some  of  these  have  been  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  it  is  rarely  that  some  of  them  find 
their  way  to  museums  or  the  cabinets  of  the  antiquarian. 

1  Mr.   Montigue  illustrated  this  paper  by  exhibiting  many   interesting   and 
valuable  specimens  from  his  large  and  valuable  collection. 


Well  Caves  of  Bucks  County. 

BY    MISS   BELLE  VANSANT,    NEWTOWN,    PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  May  31,  1919.) 

MANY  years  before  the  bacteriologist  had  informed  us  that 
a  house-fly  carries  a  quarter  of  a  million  bacteria  upon 
soles  of  its  feet,  or  that  each  drop  of  fresh  milk  under 
ordinary  conditions  contains  1,500  bacteria,  which  after  forty- 
eight  hours  in  a  temperature  of  sixty-eight  degrees  Fahrenheit, 
increases  to  one  billion,  or  before  Pasteur  had  taught  the  art  of 
making  bacteria  soup,  the  housewife  and  dairyman  had  their 
own  troubles  in  keeping  meat  from  spoiling,  butter  from  melting, 
and  milk  from  turning  sour.  Without  knowing  the  scientific 
reason,  they  had  learned  by  experience,  that  in  order  to  preserve 
provisions  and  milk  during  the  summer  months  they  must  have 
a  place  where  the  temperature  could  be  kept  at  least  below  sixty 
degrees,  and  in  order  to  accomplish  this  they  resorted  to  a  num- 
ber of  devices.  If  today  you  visit  a  Bucks  county  farm  house 
of  the  period  of  1750  to  1830,  where  modern  devices  have  been 
introduced,  you  will  probably  find  the  whole  series,  cellar,  well, 
well-cave,  ice  house,  spring  house,  spring-cave,  cooking  tank, 
patent  cooler  and  refrigerator. 

My  subject  today,  however,  is  the  well-cave,  also  known  as 
the  vault,  milk-vault  or  ground-cellar.  Of  these  I  have  visited 
about  thirty,  and  have  found  no  two  exactly  alike  in  architectural 
style.    When  one  sees  an  ancient  stone  farm  house,  ofif  in  a  field. 


WELL-CAVES    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  203 

remote  from  the  public  highway,  we  of  course  surmise  that 
there  must  be  a  spring  of  water  there,  and  we  are  usually  cor- 
rect ;  but  it  did  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  all  of  our  forefathers  to  pur- 
chase springy  land,  in  which  case  the  well-caves  had  to  be  re- 
sorted to.  I  shall  not  attempt,  in  this  short  paper,  to  describe  in 
detail  the  many  different  caves  that  I  have  examined,  but  will 
confine  my  descriptions  to  but  a  few  of  them,  and  then  tell  of 
some  of  the  variations. 

The  first  model  of  a  cave  that  I  will  describe,  is  on  the  farm 
of  Mrs.  Joseph  Watson  on  the  pike  between  Newtown  and  Lang- 
horne.  That  part  of  this  cave  which  is  above  ground  is  a  stone 
structure  seven  feet  long  by  five  feet  wide  at  the  base,  and  four 
feet  high  at  the  peak.  On  one  of  the  slanting  sides  is  a  wood- 
en door  with  iron  hinges,  the  opposite  slant  is  almost  covered 
by  one  large  flat  stone.  There  is  no  mound  above  ground,  but 
beyond  is  the  well  and  pump,  and  from  the  mouth  of  the  cave 
to  the  end  of  the  well  is  about  thirty-five  feet.  Near  the  middle 
of  this  space  is  a  brick  chimney  three  feet  high  and  two  feet 
square,  covered  by  a  flat  stone,  and  with  air  passages  underneath. 
From  the  door  of  the  cave  a  straight  flight  of  eighteen  stone 
steps,  each  nine  inches  deep  extends  to  the  vault  below.  Most 
of  the  steps  are  made  of  one  stone,  others  have  two  stones,  all 
have  masonry  underneath.  The  sides  of  the  stairw^ay  and  the 
slanting  roof  above  are  constructed  of  masonry.  At  the  bot- 
tom of  the  stairs  there  is  a  slat  door,  on  each  side  of  which  there 
are  recesses  in  the  wall  about  twelve  and  eight  inches,  and  about 
twelve  inches  deep.  The  vault  itself  is  fourteen  feet  long  by 
twelve  feet  wide  and  seven  feet  high,  this  also  has  masonry  sides 
and  roof,  and  a  flagstone  floor.  On  each  of  the  long  sides  there 
are  projections  upon  which,  at  one  time,  rested  board  shelves. 
At  the  far  end  of  the  vault  is  a  smaller  door  four  feet  by  two 
feet,  which  opens  into  a  passageway  two  and  one-half  feet  high 
by  two  feet  wide,  which  is  the  entrance,  through  a  passageway 
two  and  one-half  feet  deep  leading  into  the  well.  On  each  side 
of  this  are  also  stone  projections  upon  which  rests  a  large  flat 
stone.  This  vault  is  near  the  barn  and  connected  with  the  barn 
well.  It  is  nicely  whitewashed,  and  in  it  the  present  tenant  keeps 
his  milk-cooler  and  cream  separator. 

On  the  Obadiah  Willett,  later  Jonathan  Knight  and  now  Wil- 


204  WELL-CAVES    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

Ham  R.  Wallhiser  farm,  near  Feasterville,  is  a  two-roomed  cave, 
the  largest  I  have  seen.  The  slanting  double  doors  are  on  a 
level  with  the  basement  or  cellar  kitchen,  and  against  a  stone  wall 
supporting  a  mound  above,  the  top  of  which  is  reached  by  six 
stone  steps.  From  the  lower  level  twelve  stone  steps  lead  to  the 
first  room  of  the  vault  which  is  fourteen  and  one-half  feet  long 
by  ten  and  one-half  feet  wide  and  seven  and  one-half  feet  high, 
with  an  arched  roof  ceiling,  in  which  two  ventilators  may  be 
seen.  On  one  side  of  this  room  is  an  alcove  four  and  one-half 
by  three  feet,  at  the  rear  of  which  is  the  opening  into  the  well, 
four  feet  high  by  three  feet  wide,  extending  through  a  wall 
three  feet  thick.  This  passageway  is  raised  about  a  foot  above 
the  floor  level  and  is  somewhat  V-shaped,  and  only  about  eigh- 
teen inches  wide  at  the  well  entrance.  Near  this  is  another 
opening  three  feet  wide  leading  into  a  second  room  which  is 
nine  feet  by  seven  feet,  with  one  ventilator  in  the  ceiling. 
Suspended  from  the  ceiling  of  each  room  are  four  large  hooks, 
probably  for  supporting  hanging  shelves,  and  on  each  side,  near 
the  well,  are  niches  in  the  wall  eight  by  twelve  inches.  The 
board  shelves  on  both  sides  of  the  room  are  supported  by  wooden 
pegs.  The  entire  floor  is  covered  with  large  white  flagstones. 
The  gate  at  the  bottom  of  the  steps  has  disappeared,  but  the 
hinges  remain.  On  the  outside,  above  and  beyond  the  wall,  is 
quite  an  extensive  mound,  from  which  arise  three  brick  chimneys, 
the  external  part  of  the  ventilators.  In  1828  Obadiah  Willett  tore 
down  the  old  dwelling  house  at  this  place  and  built  the  present 
mansion,  but  just  how  long  previous  to  this  the  cave  existed  can- 
not now  be  determined. 

The  third  example  which  I  wish  particularly  to  describe,  is  on 
the  Russell  Watson  farm  on  the  Feasterville  road.  It  is  a  two- 
storied  cave  of  a  distinct  type.  The  outside  door  opens  into  a 
stone  structure,  covered  by  a  slanting  shingle  roof.  At  the  en- 
entrance  are  two  doors,  one  solid  and  the  other  made  of  slats. 
Eight  steps  lead  to  the  first  landing.  This  room  is  eight  and 
one-half  feet  by  nine  feet,  eight  feet  high  on  one  side  and  four- 
teen feet  high  on  the  other.  Two  windows  eighteen  by  twenty- 
three  inches  open  into  this  room.  The  walls  are  eighteen  inches 
thick.  On  the  high  side  there  is  a  large  swinging  shelf,  and 
lower  down  stone  projections  upon  which  rests  a  board  shelf.    A 


WELL-CAVES    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  205 

flight  of  seven  steps  leads  to  the  lower  room  which  extends  un- 
derneath the  ground,  and  is  the  real  cave.  This  room  is  seven 
feet  by  twelve  feet  and  seven  feet  high,  with  arched  roof.  At 
the  back  of  this,  through  a  wall  three  and  one-half  feet  thick, 
there  is  a  passage  opening  into  the  well.  Doors,  at  one  time, 
probably  separated  the  upper  and  lower  rooms,  and  also  the  en- 
trance to  the  well,  but  only  part  of  the  hinges  remain.  There  is 
one  ventilator  in  the  lower  cave  from  which  a  stone  chimney  ex- 
tends to  the  mound  above. 

So  far  as  the  structure  above  ground  is  concerned,  no  two 
caves  are  alike.  Some  have  a  grassy  mound  with  a  stone  wall 
at  each  end ;  some  are  walled  at  one  end  and  slope  to  a  level  at 
the  other  end.  The  entrance  of  caves  also  varies,  often  it  is 
through  a  door  in  the  wall,  either  on  a  level  or  down  two  or 
three  steps.  In  one  cave  six  outside  steps  were  at  right  angles 
to  the  door  and  inside  steps.  Often  there  is  nothing  showing 
above  ground  but  double  doors  lying  flat  on  the  ground.  A  cave 
of  that  kind  may  be  seen  at  the  Turk  Hotel  near  Doylestown. 
At  Neshaminy  Falls  there  is  a  cave  underneath  the  flagstone  floor 
of  a  back  porch,  with  an  entrance  in  what  appears  to  be  a  closet. 
At  the  Shoe  farm  a  very  extensive  cave  is  under  the  smoke  house. 

In  towns,  caves  frequently  have  their  entrances  through  the 
cellars  of  the  houses,  the  cavities  and  wells  being  outside  the 
foundations,  either  with  or  without  mounds.  In  two  instances 
the  caves  extend  to  the  streets  and  the  pumps  must  have  been 
where  the  pavements  now  are,  probably  town  pumps.  The  stair 
ways  are  usually  straight  but  some  are  winding  and  others  have 
landings  part  w^ay  down  and  then  turn  at  right  angles,  some  have 
open  spaces  at  the  landings.  The  nitches  in  the  walls  are  of 
great  variety,  both  in  size  and  number.  Shelves  made  of  boards 
are  most  common,  although  a  few  have  stone  shelves.  Some 
have  stone  corner  pieces  somewhat  resembling  stone  sinks.  In 
some  cases  stone  ledges,  about  five  feet  from  the  floors,  serve  as 
shelves.  These  ledges  were  formed  by  building  out  the  entire 
lower  walls  to  thicknesses  of  about  ten  inches.  In  the  vault  at 
Jenks  Hall,  later  the  home  of  William  Barnsley,  there  were 
marble  slabs  on  each  side  of  the  cave.  This  vault  unlike  most 
of  them  was  built  next  to  an  ice  house  instead  of  a  well.  There 
is  also  an  interesting  transition  in  the  vaulted  spring  house,  such 


206  WELL-CAVES    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

as  may  be  seen  at  the  Washington  Headquarters  house  in  New- 
town or  the  Wilson  Woodman  farm  near  Wycombe. 

In  the  days  that  vaults  were  in  common  use  the  milk  was 
strained  above  ground  and  then  carried  in  pans  to  the  cave  and 
placed  in  rows  on  the  flagstone  floor.  The  milk  was  skimmed 
there,  and  the  cream,  if  not  cool  enough,  was  sometimes  let 
down  the  well  by  a  rope.  The  churning  was  done  above  ground, 
but  the  butter-making  and  moulding  it  into  shape  were  done  in 
the  vaults.  The  butter,  usually  in  pound  moulds,  was  wrapped 
in  cotton  cloths  and  placed  in  rows  on  the  flagstones  or  on  the 
stone  shelves.  I  learned  of  one  cave  where  the  milk  was  let  down 
into  the  vault  by  a  rope  through  one  of  the  ventilators. 

It  is  quite  difliicult  to  learn  the  age  of  well-caves.  They  are 
found  at  farm  houses,  the  oldest  part  of  which  dates  back  to 
1765,  and  the  newer  parts  between  1800  and  1850,  but  I  have 
not  been  able  to  determine  the  dates  when  the  vaults  were  built. 
Where  the  old  doors  are  intact  I  have  found  hand  wrought 
hinges  and  nails,  also  that  lime  and  sand  mortar  was  used  in 
their  construction.  ■  Cave-wells  are  much  more  numerous  in  the 
lower  part  of  our  county  than  in  the  middle  and  northern  parts. 
However  they  must  have  been  used  by  the  Germans  for  in  the 
records  of  their  early  settlements,  they  are  referred  to  as  "ground 
cellars". 

Substantially  built  stone  houses,  the  bakeovens,  the  smoke- 
houses, and  the  well-caves  are  the  common  inheritance  of  the 
Bucks  county  farmer.  The  bakeoven  and  the  smokehouse  have 
long  since  survived  their  usefulness,  and  in  almost  no  instance 
is  the  well-cave  serving  its  original  purpose,  and  happy  indeed, 
must  have  been  the  farmer's  wife  when  she  carried  her  last  pan 
of  milk  or  kettle  of  cream  up  and  down  that  long  flight  of 
stone  steps. 


Notes  of  Forgotten  Trades, 

BY  DR.    HENRY  C.    MERCER,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  May  31,  1919.) 

POTTERS  Quern  for  Grinding  Glaze.  (Information  of  Red- 
ding Francis  Rapp,  to  Dr.  Mercer,  February  1916).  Seen 
by  Mr.  Rapp  in  Northampton  County,  Pa.,  another  on  the 
Pennsylvania  side  of  the  Delaware  river  half  way  between  the 
Milford  and  Frenchtown  river  bridges,  another  one  at  Herstine's 
pottery  in  Nockamixon  township.  One  of  these  querns  resembled 
the  paint  quern  in  the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical 
Society,  but  another  one  ground  the  paint  under  a  revolving 
wheel  set  upon  an  axle  vertically  on  a  saucer  stone,  and  pulled 
around  the  circumference  of  the  saucer  upon  a  vertical  pivot  in 
the  center. 

Pie  Dishes.  (Information  of  Mr.  Rapp  to  Dr.  Mercer,  Feb- 
ruary 1916.)  Mr.  Rapp  saw  decorated  pie  dishes  in  the  posses- 
sion of  Sarah  Riegel,  between  upper  Tinicum  Church  and  Revere, 
about  two  miles  from  Revere.  Still  living  there.  Another  in 
possession  of  Sarah  Krause  living  near  Cornelius  Herstine's  pot- 
tery on  Peter  Mills  farm.  Also  in  possession  of  Emeline  Rapp  at 
Erwinna. 

Dog  Churn.  (Information  of  Mr.  Rapp  to  Dr.  Mercer,  Feb- 
ruary 1916.)  Mr.  Rapp  saw  churns  worked  by  dogs,  goats  and 
sheep.  The  dog  would  frequently  refuse  to  work  and  lie  down. 
He  saw  this  between  Freemansburg  and  Durham  Furnace  in 
Northampton  township  in  1855. 

Cider  Press.  (Information  of  Mr.  Rapp  to  Dr.  Mercer,  Feb- 
ruary 1916.)  Mr.  Rapp,  now  of  Doylestown.  Pa.,  built  in  his 
boatyard  at  Erwinna,  a  cider  press  in  1862  for  Tobias  Fishier 
and  Titus  Tettemer.  The  wood  was  secured  at  Stover's  mill  and 
in  the  woods.  It  was  dressed  with  common  broad  axes  (not  of 
the  goose  wing  type),  and  wood  axes.  White  oak  was  always 
used.  The  wood  was  sawed  at  Fishler's  mill.  The  wooden 
screws  were  bought  second  hand,  and  the  iron  work  was  made  by 


208  RANDOM   NOTES  ON  FORGOTTEN   TRADES 

Gus  Siegler  at  Erwinna.  The  latter  bought  the  press.  The 
style  of  the  press  was  with  a  double  screw  like  the  one  with  a 
roof  upon  it  at  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society.  The 
apples  were  ground  in  a  mill  in  the  open  air  with  no  roof,  which 
was  turned  by  two  horses.  A  great  deal  of  cider  was  made  dur- 
ing the  time  that  soldiers  were  drafted  for  the  war,  and  the 
cider  was  made  by  the  owners  and  Mr.  Rapp.  The  farmers 
brought  the  apples  by  the  wagon  load.  Then  Mr.  Rapp  distilled 
the  cider,  then  worth  eighteen  cents  a  gallon.  He  ran  it  forty 
degrees  above  proof  and  gave  140  gallons  for  every  100  gallons 
sold.  It  was  then  put  in  wooden  containers  and  placed  in  the 
cellar,  where  it  would  rectify  to  proof.  Fishier  was  drafted  into 
the  army  for  nine  months,  and  after  he  came  home,  he  sold  apple 
jack  for  $2.50  a  gallon  after  paying  the  war  tax,  which  was  about 
80  cents  or  $1.00  a  gallon,  for  which  the  Government  sent  a 
ganger,  and  the  tax  was  not  paid  until  the  liquor  was  sold.  This 
cidermill  was  the  first  Mr.  Rapp  ever  made,  and  he  was  then 
about  twenty-four  years  old.  About  1864  he  built  another  one 
for  John  Frantz  who  lived  about  one  mile  above  Erwinna,  Tini- 
cum  township.  This  was  the  single  screw  style  like  the  others  in 
the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  and  it  may  be  still  upon  the 
premises.  At  that  time  he  made  no  whiskey.  Samuel  Hillpot 
had  a  cidermill  one  mile  south  of  Erwinna  called  a  burr  mill 
where  apple  whiskey  was  distilled.  His  mill  had  a  grinder  like 
ours.  Abraham  Schick  in  Nockamixon  township  had  another 
and  he  also  made  whiskey.  Copper  stills  were  used.  Schick  had 
the  circular  grinding  trough  with  wooden  wheels.  Mr.  Rapp 
has  seen  a  great  many  cidermills  about  Bucks  county.  He  worked 
five  years  for  Fishier  and  colled  money  for  him. 

Querns  in  Greene  County^  Pennsylvania.  (Information 
of  E.  F.  Bowlby  to  Dr.  Mercer,  January  29,  1916.)  Querns  for 
grinding  meal  r^n  by  horse  power  on  a  treadmille  made  in 
Greene  county  were  seen  by  Mr.  Bowlby  about  forty-five  years 
ago  or  about  1865.  The  stones  were  about  eighteen  inches  in 
diameter. 

NiGGERiNG  Logs.  (Information  of  Mr.  Bowlby  to  Dr.  Mercer, 
Greene  county  were  seen  by  Mr.  Bowlby  about  forty-five  years 
Mercer,  January  29,  1916.)     In  Monongahela  county,  West  Vir- 


RANDOM   NOTES  ON  FORGOTTEN  TRADES  209 

ginia.  about  1840  to  1880,  A.  L.  Wade,  as  a  boy,  about  1840  cut 
up  long  logs,  several  of  which  were  hauled  into  his  house  for  him 
by  his  neighbors.  The  process  of  "niggering",  or  cutting  the  logs 
by  fire,  was  done  by  building  small  fires  of  small  sticks  across  the 
logs  which  fires  were  continually  renewed  until  the  logs  were  cut 
through  in  hollows  about  ten  to  twelve  inches  wide.  New  fires 
were  built  by  laying  a  shovelful  of  live  coals  on  a  fresh  log  from 
an  old  fire.  Mr.  Wade  then  lived  at  a  place  called  Bowlby,  in 
Monongahela  county  and  Robert  Bowlby  (brother  of  E.  F.), 
in  making  clearings  for  new  houses  also  thvis  cut  fresh  logs  at  the 
same  place  between  1875  and  1880.  A  great  number  of  log- 
fires  could  be  kept  going  at  the  same  time. 

Milestones.  (Information  of  Wilson  Woodman,  Wycombe, 
to  Dr.  Mercer,  April  1916.)  An  old  milestone  stands  on  the 
Newtown  pike  just  below  \A^rightstown.  Another  at  the  Anchor 
Hotel  opposite  the  latter,  marked  26^  to  Philadelphia.  Another 
on  the  New  Hope  road  marked  26  miles  to  Philadelphia.  The 
latter  is  lying  down  now,  May  1916. 

Log  Barns.  (Information  of  Stacy  L.  Weaver,  Doylestown, 
to  Dr.  Mercer,  February  3,  1916.)  About  1856  when  I  was 
twelve  years  old  I  worked  for  my  uncles.  Samuel,  Frank  and 
Weaver  Laubenstein,  on  a  farm  on  the  left  bank  of  Tinicum 
creek  about  one  mile  southeast  of  Sundale.  At  that  time  I 
helped  to  cover  the  roof  of  the  barn  with  thatch  of  rye  straw  tied 
down  with  twists  of  straw.  No  strings  were  used,  nor  were 
stones  laid  upon  it.  The  thatch  was  four  inches  thick  and  it 
sometimes  had  to  be  repaired.  It  was  built  of  logs  with 
the  threshing  floor  on  the  ground.  The  barn  was  very  long, 
about  sixty  feet.  Mr.  Fox  lived  on  this  farm  within  the  last 
twenty  years,  but  the  old  log  barn  has  long  since  been  replaced 
by  a  frame  barn.  The  house  was  considered  very  old  in  1856, 
and  had  double  doors  like  those  found  in  stables. 

Log  Barn  One  Mile  East  of  Doylestown.  (Information 
of  Stacy  L.  Weaver  to  Dr.  Mercer,  February  3,  1918.)  A  log 
barn  stood  near  the  present  old  stone  house  now  belonging  to  Dr. 
Henry  C.  Mercer,  was  lived  in  about  1875  by  Mr.  Harding. 
This  barn  had  the  threshing  floor  on  the  ground,  and  part  of  the 


210  RANDOM   NOTES  ON  FORGOTTEN  TRADES 

roof  was  thatched.  The  rest  of  it  was  roofed  with  boards. 
Owing  to  the  rotting  away  of  the  lower  structure  of  logs  the 
whole  building  had  settled,  so  that  a  cow  scarcely  got  in  the  door. 
Mr.  Harding  lived  in  the  stone  house  at  that  time.  I  never  re- 
member seeing  a  bake  oven  there.  (A  walled-up  hole  in  the 
east  wall  against  the  back  of  the  fireplace  proves  that  a  bake 
oven  had  existed,  H.  C.  M.)^ 

Fiddlers.  (Information  of  Stacy  L.  Weaver  to  Dr.  Mercer, 
December  15,  1917.)  Bryce  Weaver,  father  of  Stacy  L.  Weaver, 
did  not  play,  but  his  uncles  Samuel  and  William  Weaver,  were 
fiddlers.  Samuel  went  to  Cincinnati  fifty-five  years  ago.  His 
family  lived  on  the  edge  of  Nockamixon  swamp.  They  both 
played  by  note  and  played  for  square  dances,  cotillions  and 
waltzes,  later  for  the  polka,  quadrille  and  lancers.  A  favorite 
tune  often  played  was,  "Turkeys  in  the  Straw".  Stacy  often 
called  the  figures  for  this  at  dances.  Bill  Smith  was  an  old 
fiddler  living  in  the  glen  on  the  Erwinna  road  just  northeast  of 
Headquarters,  now  Sundale,  when  Stacy  was  a  boy.  His  favor- 
ite tunes  were,  "The  Fishers  Hornpipe",  "Devils  Dream",  and 
"Arkansas  Traveller".  Hen  Allen,  a  blacksmith  at  Pipersville, 
was  a  good  fiddler  about  forty  years  ago.  He  played  by  note. 
He  played  at  dances  held  at  Bedminster  Center.  Erwinna  and 
Bedminsterville,  and  for  parties  at  Headquarters.  He  played 
alone  as  did  most  fiddlers.  Bill  Purcell  and  his  brother  at  Er- 
winna along  the  canal  were  good  fiddlers.  John  Ernst,  near 
Dublin,  was  a  mighty  good  fiddler.  He  borrowed  Stacy's  violin, 
a  very  good  instrument,  to  play  at  a  party  at  Point  Pleasant,  and 
that  was  the  last  Stacy  ever  saw  of  it  or  of  the  borrower.  He 
played  by  note  and  played  left  handed.  Fiddlers  never  took  note 
books  to  parties  or  dances,  being  perfectly  familiar  with  their 
tunes.  Ten  cents  a  corner  or  forty  cents  a  set,  was  the  usual 
charge  of  a  fiddler  at  a  dance.  Sometimes  they  would  pass  the 
hat  around  and  collect  five, or  six  dollars.  Fights  at  Red  Hill 
Tavern  parties  were  frequent,  where  two  rival  "gangs",  were  at 
feud.    One  of  these  was  called  the  Strause  Gang. 

1  A  small  log  cabin  on  the  Stony  Garden  Road  about  one  mile  east  of 
Singer's  Pottery  at  Danielstown,  observed  by  Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer  and  Frank 
K.  Swain,  summer  of  1917,  had  so  sunk  into  the  ground,  probably  in  the  same 
manner  owing  to  the  absence  of  foundation,  that  I,  Henry  C.  Mercer,  could 
not  stand  erect  in  the  single  room  on  the  ground  floor,  the  ceiling  of  which 
formed  the  floor  of  the  garret.     I  also  had  to  stoop  to  enter  the  door. 


random  notes  on  forgotten  trades  211 

Survival  of  the  Most  Primitive  Method  of  Threshing 
Grain  in  Bucks  County  About  1850.  (Information  to  Dr. 
Mercer,  December  15,  1917.)  As  a  boy  living  in  Tinicum  town- 
shop,  Bucks  county,  Stacy  L.  Weaver  on  several  occasions  led 
horses  or  mules  on  the  threshing  floor  of  the  barn,  to  thresh 
grain  by  stamping  with  their  feet. 


The  Ringing  Rocks  of  Bridgeton  Township. 

BY  B.  F.  FACKENTHAL,  JR.,  SC.  D.,  RIEGELSVILLE,  PA. 
(Ringing  Rocks  Meeting,  October  4,   1919.) 

'N  1909,  ten  years  ago,  there  was  included  in  the 
pubHcations  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  So- 
ciety, a  short  description  of  the  Ringing  Rocks  of 
Bridgeton  Township,  in  Bucks  County,  Pa.^  That 
paper,  however,  was  not  read  before  the  society, 
and  in  view  of  the  further  fact  that  since  then, 
viz :  on  August  22,  1918,  the  land  which  contains  these  interesting 
rocks  was  presented  to  our  society  by  Mr.  Abel  B.  Haring,  of 
Frenchtown,  N.  J.,  I  have  thought  that  it  might  be  of  special 
interest  to  read  a  revised  paper  at  this  meeting,  after  our  return 
from  visiting  the  rocks,  and  while  resting  in  this  shady  nook 
under  the  hemlocks  at  High  Falls. 

The  land  conveyed  by  Mr.  Haring  has  an  area  of  7  acres  8.08 
perches-  and  in  addition  thereto,  Mr.  John  O.  McEntee  has 
kindly  consented  to  present  to  our  society,  a  right-of-way  into  the 
property  from  the  public  road. 

The  property  is  situate  in  Bridgeton  Township,  (erected  in  1880 
out  of  part  of  Nockamixon  Township)  about  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  back  from  the  Delaware  River,  on  a  plateau  having  an  ele- 
vation of  about  500  feet  above  tide.  Immediately  to  the  west 
is  Coffman's  Hill  with  an  elevation  of  about  750  feet.  The 
ringing  rocks  are  about  six  miles  from  Riegelsville  by  the  river 
road  via  Narrowsville,  about  four  miles  from  Ferndale  and  about 
two  and  one-quarter  miles  from  Milford,  N.  J.  They  can  also  be 
reached  from  Kintnersville  by  the  public  road  leading  past  Kint- 
nersville  schoolhouse,  which  connects  at  the  top  of  the  hill  with 
the  Ferndale  road.  It  is  also  feasible  to  open  a  road  leading  into 
the  rocks  from  the  Delaware  River  road,  now  a  state  highway,  and 
I  trust  that  this  society  will  at  an  early  day  take  the  initiative  in 
securing  a  right-of-way  and  building  such  a  road,  which  would 
make  this  interesting  place  more  accessible  and  inviting  to  the 
traveling  public. 

1  Bucks  County  Historical  Society  papers.  Vol.  Ill,  p.  590  et  seq. 

2  Recorded  at  Doylestown,   Deed   Book  No.    413,   p.    318. 


PALISADES    OR   NARROWS    OF   NOCKAMIXOK. 

Bluffs  of  New  Red  Sandstone  rising  about   400   feet  above  the  Delawai 

River.     Taken  from  Narrowsville  Locks,  with  view  of 

Delaware  Division  Canal. 


RIXGIXG    ROCKS    OF    BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP,    BUCKS    COUXTl',    I'A. 

View  looking  toward  the  south. 

The  largest  part  of  this  field,  shown  in  the  background  of  this  etching,  covers 

an  area  of  five  acres.     Photographed  May  3,   1909. 


MONROE,    Dl'llHAM    TOWNSHIP,    BUCKS    COUNTY,    PA. 
To   show   cavities   in    the   conglomerri te,    lying   at   the    northern    edge    of   the 
triassic,    after   the    softer    magnesian    limestone    (dolomite)    had    leached    out. 


THE   RINGING    ROCKS   OF   RRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP  213 

These  rocks  present  an  interesting  geological  study.  They  be- 
long to  the  triassic  period,  and  consist  of  igneous  trap  rocks, 
called  igneous  because  of  the  intensely  heated  liquid  condition 
(suggesting  fire  to  the  ancients)  in  which  they  were  forced  up 
into  their  place  as  intrusive  masses  or  through  the  rocks  to  the 
surface  as  in  the  cases  of  lava  flows.  This  triassic  belt,  known 
also  as  New  Red  Sandstone,  and  classified  by  the  United  States 
and  New  Jersey  Geological  surveys,  as  the  Newark  System,  can 
be  traced  from  the  Hudson  River  across  the  states  of  New  Jersey 
and  Pennsylvania  into  Maryland,  following  the  general  trend  of 
the  mountain  ranges  running  northeast  and  southwest.  The 
palisades  of  the  Hudson  belong  to  this  series,  as  do  also  our  own 
beautiful  palisades  at  the  Narrows  in  Nockamixon  Township, 
Bucks  County.  At  the  Hudson  River  the  formation  is  about  fif- 
teen miles  wide.  At  the  Delaware  River  it  has  a  width  of  about 
thirty-two  miles,  extending  from  Trenton  on  the  south,  to  its 
northern  boundary  just  south  of  Holland  Church  in  Hunterdon 
County,  New  Jersey.  This  northern  boundary  can  be  traced  by 
conglomerates,  which  outcrop  at  many  places  across  the  states  of 
New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania.  The  lines  of  demarcation  and  con- 
tact are  well  defined  on  the  Pennsylvania  side  of  the  river,  op- 
posite Holland  church,  at  Monroe  (Lehnenburg),  in  Durham 
Township,  Bucks  County,  where  the  red  shale  is  separated  from 
the  dolomite'^  (which  forms  its  northern  boundary)  by  splendid 
examples  of  conglomerate.  Along  the  river  road  leading  from 
Holland  Church  to  Milford,  N.  J.,  near  Holland  railroad  station, 
there  are  bold  bluffs  of  conglomerate  which  rise,  almost  perpen- 
dicularly, two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  river.  Where 
these  bluffs  have  been  cut  through  to  make  room  for  the  public 
road  and  for  the  Belviedere  Delaware  railroad  they  can  be  seen 
to  splendid  advantage.  An  etching  from  a  photograph  of  one  of 
them  is  shown  herewith.  At  that  place  the  conglomerates 
can  also  be  seen  in  the  bed  of  the  river.  When  the  water  is  low 
some  .parts   are   exposed   above   its    surface.      Between   Holland 

3  The  dolomite  at  Monroe,  lying  north  of  the  conglomerate,  contains  but 
one  per  cent  of  silica,  whereas  that  in  New  Jersey,  just  north  of  Holland 
church,  almost  immediately  across  the  river  from  Monroe,  contains  twenty 
per  cent. 

Splendid  examples  of  this  same  dolomitic  formation,  with  pebbles,  can  be 
seen  to  advantage  along  the  northern  edge  of  the  triassic,  in  the  outcroppings 
on  the  farm  now  (1919)  belonging  to  Miss  Ida  Weaver  on  a  branch  of 
Cook's  or  Durham  Creek,  near  West  Springfield  schoolhouse,  on  the  road 
leading  to  Leithsville  and  Hellertown,  in  Northampton  County. 


214  THE   RINGING   ROCKS   OF   BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP 

Church  and  Milford,  N.  J.,  the  river  flows  almost  due  east,  and 
the  boundary  of  the  conglomerate  apparently  follows  the  bed  of 
the  river  westwardly,  passing  at  Monroe  into  Pennsylvania,  where 
loose  pebbles  of  flint  can  be  traced  over  the  hills  through  Durham 
and  Springfield  Townships.  Buckwampun  Hill,  eight  hundred 
feet  above  tide,  is  covered  with  silicious  pebbles.  Back  from  the 
river  on  the  New  Jersey  side  these  conglomerate  bluffs  form 
Gravel  Hill,  with  an  elevation  of  eight  hundred  and  sixty-five  feet 
above  tide.  The  pebbles  in  the  conglomerate  at  Holland  are 
mostly  silicious,  they  vary  in  size  and  shape  and  are  of  many 
colors.  At  Monroe  the  composition  is  somewhat  different,  the 
pebbles  in  that  part  lying  next  to  the  dolomite  are  dolomitic.  In 
some  places  the  dolomite,  being  softer,  has  dissolved  or  eroded 
leaving  the  matrix  full  of  irregular-shaped  cavities,  as  shown  by 
the  etching  accompanying  this  paper,  which  will  give  some  idea 
of  the  honeycombed  condition  of  this  limestone-dolomite  breccia.'^ 
This  condition  changes  gradually  as  it  nears  the  new  red  sand- 
stone, where  the  pebbles  are  mixed  and  become  mostly  silicious. 

The  average  width  of  the  triassic  across  Pennsylvania  (the 
southeastern  corner)  is  about  twenty  miles.  It  is,  however,  much 
wider  across  Bucks  and  Montgomery  Counties  which  are  made 
up  largely  of  this  formation. 

The  triassic  occurs  also  in  Connecticut  from  New  Haven 
northward  into  Massachusetts,  but  there  it  is  bounded  on  the 
west  by  a  broad  area  of  crystalline  rocks,  granite  and  gneiss.  It 
does  not  cross  the  Hudson  River,  and  apparently  has  no  connec- 
tion with  the  New  Jersey-Pennsylvania  area,  if  it  ever  was  a  part 
the  connection  has  long  since  been  removed  by  erosion.  So  too 
the  New  Jersey-Pennsylvania  area  is  not  connected  with  the 
North  Carolina  and  Virginia  areas. 

There  is.  however,  no  intention  of  making  this  a  technical 
paper,  as  the  geology  has  been  carefully  studied  and  fully  de- 
scribed by  the  geological  surveys  of  both  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey  to  which  reference  can  be  had.  Neither  of  these  surveys, 
however,  refers  to  the  ringing  rocks.  But  I  desire  especially  to 
invite  your  attention  to  the  admirable  reports  in  the  New  Jersey 

4  Dr.  Edgar  T.  VTherry,  formerly  of  Lehigh  University,  but  now  of  the 
United  States  National  Museum,  reports  having  found  glauberite  crystal- 
cavities  in  the  triassic  in  the  vicinity  of  Steinsburg  in  Bucks  County.  (See 
American  Mineralogist,  Vol.  I,  No.   3,  for  September,  1916,  pp.   37  to  43. 


ELUFF  OF  CONGLOMERATE  IN  NORTHERN  EDGE  OF  THE  TRIASSIC. 

Along   Delaware   River,   near   Holland,   N.    J.    Railroad    Station. 
(Photograph  by  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.,  January  17.   1919.) 


THE   RINGING   ROCKS   OF   BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP  215 

Geological  Survey,  particularly  those  of  Dr.  Henry  B.  Kiimmel  in 
the  annual  reports  for  1896  and  1897,  and  of  Dr.  J.  Volney 
Lewis  in  the  annual  reports  for  1906  and  1907. 

Throughout  this  belt  of  triassic  or  new  red  sandstone,  there  are 
numerous  dykes  of  igenous  trap  rocks.  Much  of  this  trap  rock  is 
being  quarried  and  crushed  for  road  making  material,  but  the 
ringing  rocks,  although  of  the  same  diabase,  present  a  unique  and 
entirely  different  appearance  from  the  ordinary  outcroppings. 

Within  the  area  of  this  formation  there  are  many  places  where 
rocks  are  broken  and  piled  loosely  or  scattered,  but  so  far  as  I 
know  there  are  but  seven  fields  in  Pennsylvania  where  they  have 
ringing  properties. "• 

The  seven  places  are  as  follows.  The  first  three  are  in  Bucks 
County  :*^ 

1.  Ringing  Rocks  of  Bridgeton  Township,  of  which  special 

mention  is  made  in  this  paper. 

2.  Stony  Garden  in  Haycock  Township,  on  the  northern 

slope  of  Haycock  Mountain. 

3.  Springfield  Township,  about  two  and  one-quarter  miles 

east  of  Coopersburg  station  on  the  North  Pennsyl- 
vania branch  of  the  Reading  Railroad,  known  locally 
as  "Rocky  Valley,"  but  is  on  the  side  of  a  mountain 
and  has  an  elevation  of  about  seven  hundred  feet. 

4.  Spring   Mountain,   Montgomery   County,   east   of    Per- 

kiomen  Creek,  three  miles  above  Schwenksville,  Pa. 

5.  Ridge  Valley,  near  Sumneytown,  Montgomery  County, 

known  locally  as  the  "Devil's  Potato  Patch." 

6.  Ringing  Hill,  Ringing  Rocks  Park,  Montgomery  County, 

about  two  miles  northeast  of  Pottstown,  Pa. 

7.  Blue  Rocks  in  Chester  County,  one  mile  east  of  Elver- 

son  station,  on  the  Wilmington  branch  of  the  Read- 
ing Railroad. 

3  Prof.  J.  Volney  Lewis  advises  me  that  there  is  a  field  of  ringing  rocks  on 
the  east  face  of  Sourland  mountain,  two  and  one-half  miles  northeast  of 
Belle  Meade  in  Somerset  County,  N.  J.,  locally  known  as  "Devil's  Half  Acre," 
although,  he  says,  the  area  is  considerable  in  excess  of  half-an-acre. 

6  Suggestions  have  been  made  that  the  so-called  "Blue  Rocks,'  near  Len- 
hartsville,  in  Berks  County,  may  belong  to  the  same  series,  but  that  is  quite 
wrong,  as  they  are  of  an  entirely  different  geological  formation.  They  are 
conglomerate  boulders  from  the  medina  at  the  base  of  the  Silurian  The  blue 
rocks  cover  an  area  of  probably  as  much  as  ten  acres,  and  are  such  con- 
glomerates as  are  found  near  the  anthracite  coal  measures.  Although  called 
blue  rocks,  the  white  quartz  of  the  conglomerates  gives  them  a  whitish  color. 
Nearly  all  of  the  exposed  rocks  have  lichens  growing  upon  them,  and  they 
present  a  most  beautiful  appearance,  but,  of  course,  have  no  ringing 
properties. 


216  THE   RINGING   ROCKS   OF   BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP 

The  etchings  of  ringing  rocks,  shown  herewith,  are  from 
photographs  of  the  main  part  of  the  Bridgeton  Township  field, 
which  is  larger  than  any  other  field  herein  referred  to.  This 
part  has  an  area  of  about  five  acres,  and  in  it  the  musical  rocks 
are  found.  The  rocks  are  of  irregular  shapes,  and  vary  in  size 
from  fifty  pounds  to  several  tons  in  weight.  They  are  piled  on 
top  of  each  other  to  a  great  depth,  but  their  surface,  which  is 
comparatively  level,  is  not  elevated  above  the  immediately  sur- 
rounding land.  It  is,  however,  a  noticeable  fact  that  all  of  these 
beds  of  ringing  rocks  are  found  at  the  bases  of  higher  mountains, 
which  are  also  composed  of  trap  rock.  They  are  all  found  at 
the  north  edge  of  the  igneous  eruption.  All  of  the  beds  of  ring- 
ing rocks,  like  those  shown  in  the  etching,  are  entirely  denuded 
by  erosion.  They  do  not  contain  a  particle  of  soil  or  vegetation 
other  than  some  lichens.  There  are  also  several  small  beds  on 
the  Bridgeton  property,  adjoining  the  large  field,  but  the  rocks 
are  not  so  well  defined,  in  fact  the  entire  neighborhood  is  covered 
with  boulders  of  this  same  formation.  The  region  is  rough  and 
rocky,  and  the  surrounding  land  not  suitable  for  cultivation. 

When  the  ringing  rocks  are  struck  with  a  hammer  or  other 
metallic  object,  they  give  out  a  bell-like  sound,  the  tones  varying 
according  to  their  size  and  qualities.  Some  are  decidedly  more 
musical  than  others,  some  have  tones  like  those  of  a  blacksmith's 
anvil,  some  do  not  ring  at  all.  The  musical  properties  are  not 
destroyed  by  removing  them  from  their  beds.  I  have  myself  sent 
specimens  to  several  of  our  near-by  colleges  for  their  museums. 
In  order  to  further  demonstrate  this  feature  I  brought  this  stone 
from  the  Bridgeton  field  last  week  for  illustration  (exhibiting  a 
flat  stone  fifteen  inches  in  diameter  and  four  inches  thick,  and 
striking  it  with  a  hammer).  But  it  remained  for  the  late  Dr.  J.  J. 
Ott,  of  Pleasant  Valley,  Bucks  County,  to  more  fully  demonstrate 
the  musical  character  of  these  rocks  after  removing  them  from 
their  beds.  In  June,  1890,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Buckwampun  His- 
torical Society,  he  made  a  careful  selection  of  stones,  to  form  a 
musical  octave,  on  which  he  played  several  selections  accompanied 
by  a  brass  band.  The  clear,  bell-like  tones  of  the  rocks  could  be 
heard  above  the  notes  of  the  horns. 

The  ringing  properties  are  doubtless  due  to  the  texture  of  the 
diabase  of  which  they  are  composed,  but  why  some  should  re- 


f.^~         ^""kS 

^^ 

WKATHKRED    TRAP   ROCK    BOULDER. 
This  rock  is  42  feet  in  circumference  by  8  feet  liigh.     Estimated  weight  75  tot 


msMAmp. 

9," 

'    ^^vA:  4 

;W'^^«jf  .f*- 

'. 

Ri- 

Ik 

^v 

Biv" 

^- 

ii:t 

TRAP  ROCK   BOULDERS   NEAR   RINOING   ROCKS,    BRIDGETON 

TOWNSHIP. 

To  show  exfoliation  shrinkage  cracks. 

(Photographs  by  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.,  November  28,   1912.) 


THE   RINGING    ROCKS   OF   BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP  217 

spend  with  a  ring  and  others  lying  alongside  are  non-resonant, 
does  not  to  my  mind  fully  appear.  They  were  doubtless  cooled 
or  annealed  differently  and  therefore  the  crystalization  may  have 
been  different.'^  Geologists  tell  us  that  the  fields  doubtless  for- 
merly presented  solid  surfaces,  which  were  broken  apart  by 
erosion  and  that  water  percolating  downward  along  the  seams 
gradually  decomposed  the  rock  constituents,  which  were  carried 
away  by  underground  currents  of  water.  There  are  some  large 
specimens  lying  near  the  Bridgeton  ringing  rocks  which  are  split 
apart  into  four  pieces,  with  cleavages  which  appear  to  have  been 
of  recent  origin,  and  though  they  are  lying  several  feet  from 
each  other,  it  is  quite  apparent  that  they  could  be  fitted  together 
as  a  whole,  with  very  close  seams  between  them.  An  idea  of 
rocks  split  apart,  apparently  in  more  recent  years,  can  be  had  by 
the  etching  shown  herewith  of  such  rocks  at  the  Stony  Point  field. 

ROCKS    WITH    SHRINKAGE    CRACKS. 

The  belt  of  trap  rock,  which  contains  the  ringing  rocks,  in 
eastern  Pennsylvania,  can  readily  be  traced  by  surface  indica- 
tions, i.  c,  by  the  character  of  the  soil  and  by  the  trapean  boulders 
distributed  along  its  course.  Some  of  the  boulders  are  of  huge 
proportions.  Interesting  features  of  many  are  the  exfoliated 
shrinkage  cracks  on  their  surfaces.  The  etchings  shown  here- 
with are  from  photographs  of  two  large  rocks  lying  alongside  of 
the  public  road  about  half-a-mile  from  the  Bridgeton  field. 
Rocks  with  shrinkage  cracks  are  quite  common  along  the  course 
of  the  traps,  the  greater  part  are  checkered  like  the  etching,  some 
have  cracks  in  concentric  rings.  It  is  also  noticeable  that  the 
course  of  these  trap  rocks  can  be  traced  by  a  copious  growth  of 
cedar  trees.  The  flora  of  this  territory  has  proved  of  special 
interest  to  botanists. 

r  In  1909,  Dr.  Henry  B.  Kiimmel,  State  Geologist  for  New  Jersey,  accom- 
panied me  to  the  Bridgeton  ringing  rocks.  He  selected  specimens  that  had 
ringing  properties  and  those  that  were  nonresonant.  He  submitted  these 
samples  to  Dr.  J.  Volney  Lewis,  professor  of  geology  at  Rutgers  College,  New 
Brunswick,  N.  J.,  who  made  a  microscopical  examination  of  them  by  means 
of  thin  rock  sections  and  a  petrographical  microscope.  Dr.  Lewis  reported 
that  the  specimens  were  typical  olivene-diabase,  similar  in  all  essential  re- 
spects to  the  Hudson  Palisade  types  described  by  him  in  Dr.  Kiimmel' s  an- 
nual report  for  1907,  q.  v.  The  only  difference  noticed  by  him,  was  that  the 
nonresonant  sample  was  distinctly  altered  in  the  case  of  mineral  pyroxene, 
while  all  the  minerals  of  the  resonant  sample  were  remarkably  sound  and 
fresh  Dr  Lewis  says  that  it  would  perhaps  be  unsafe  to  generalize  too 
broadly,  but  it  would  appear  that  the  resonance  may  depend  upon  the  fresh- 
ness of  the  sample. 


218  THE   RIIsGING   ROCKS   OF    BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP 

The  argillite  at  Point  Pleasant,  on  both  sides  of  the  Delaware 
River,  is  of  the  same  trap  rock  formation,  although  at  that  point 
it  is  much  closer  grained,  and  has  no  shrinkage  cracks.  On  the 
Pennsylvania  side,  along  Gddes  Run,  there  are  ancient  quarries 
with  turtle  backs,  chips,  and  other  refuse  left  by  the  Indians, 
who  used  this  fine  grained  argillite  for  spear  and  arrow  heads. ^ 

STONY    GARDEN,    HAYCOCK    TOWNSHIP,    BUCKS    COUNTY. 

Stony  Garden  field  has  an  elevation  of  six  hundred  and  twenty 
feet.  It  lies  on  the  northern  slope  of  Haycock  Mountain,  which 
contains  the  largest  deposit  of  trap  rock  in  Pennsylvania.^  The 
apex  of  the  mountain  is  nine  hundred  and  sixty  feet  high.  This 
field  is  divided  into  several  parts,  but  the  main  part  is  much  the 
largest  and  has  an  area  of  about  three  acres.  It  was  from  this 
field  that  Dr.  Ott  selected  the  stones  for  his  orchestra.  Its  situa- 
tion is  a  wild  and  lonely  one  in  the  mountain,  about  two  miles 
south  of  the  Durham  Road  at  Stony  Point  (Gallows  Hill),  and 
on  the  east  side  of  the  public  road  leading  from  there  to  Apple- 
bachville.  The  surrounding  land  is  even  more  barren  than  the 
Bridgeton  field.  It  is  reported  that  the  state  of  Pennsylvania  is 
considering  the  advisabiility  of  making  a  game-preserve  of  Hay- 
cock Mountain.  If  this  is  accomplished  the  Stony  Garden  field 
would  be  included  within  its  boundaries. 

The  tunnel  of  the  North  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  near  Perkasie, 
passes  through  the  western  spur  of  Haycock  Mountain,  and  there- 
fore through  the  same  character  of  trap  rock  to  which  reference 
is  being  made.  The  Ridge  Road  running  from  the  Harrow  tavern 
to  Sumneytown  is  laid  out  on  a  ridge  of  trap  rock. 

RINGING    HILL,    POTTSTOWN. 

The  ringing  rocks  near  Pottstown  cover  an  area  of  about  four 
acres,  and  were  formerly  known  as  "Ringing  Hill."  By  reason 
of  their  nearness  to  a  city,  they  are  better  known  than  the  other 
fields.     Moreover,  the  Pottstown  Ringing  Rocks  Electric   Rail- 

9  See  "The  Redman's  Bucks  County,"  with  illustrations,  Vol.   II,  page  278. 

8  Edward  Marshall  and  his  associates  passed  along  the  northern  base  of 
this  mountain,  while  making  the  historic  "Indian  Walk,'  Sept.  19  and  20, 
1737.  They  left  the  Durham  road  at  Stony  Point  (Gallows  Hill),  and  then 
followed  an  Indian  path  to  "Wilson's  Settlement,  '  on  a  branch  of  Cook  s  (now 
Durham)  creek  near  the  West  Springfield  schoolhouse  in  Springfield  town- 
ship, where  they  rested  and  ate  their  noonday  meal  Sept.  19,  1737. 


SWAMP   CREEK,    SUMNEYTOWX,   MONTGOMERY    COUNTY,    PA. 

To  show  trap  rock  boulders  with  shrinkage  cracks.     Rocks  with  similar  cr 
can  be  traced  for  many  miles  along  the  course  of 
the  trap  rock  formation. 


STONY  GARDEN,  HAYCOCK  MOUNTAIN,  BUCKS  COUNTY,  PA. 

To  show  trap  rock  split  apart,  apparently  in  more  recent  years  which  could 
fitted  closely  together  again.     This  is  an  example  of  many  rocks 
that    can    be    seen    on    the    adjacent    hills    along    the 
course  of  the   trap  rock   formation. 


THE   RINGING   ROCKS   OF    BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP  219 

way,  which  opened  July  21,  1894,  has  estabHshed  a  pleasure  park 
at  that  place,  which  has  made  it  well  known  throughout  eastern 
Pennsylvania.  During  my  visit  to  that  field  the  guide  (employed 
by  the  trolley  company)  showed  me  over  the  rocks,  and  pointed 
out  many  fantastic  shapes  formed  on  the  rocks,  some  of  which, 
as  I  recollect,  included  the  seat  of  an  Indian  Chief,  with  indenta- 
tions on  rocks  lower  down  where  prints  of  his  feet  were  shown ; 
In  fact  almost  every  depression  and  pothole  was  given  a  name 
for  the  benefit  of  tourists.  He  did  not  believe  that  the  shapes 
were  due  to  erosion,  but  assured  me  that  they  were  really  as  he 
represented  them. 

Several  papers  were  read  before  the  Buckwampun  Historical 
Society  on  the  Ringing  Rocks  of  Bridgeton  and  Stony  Garden, 
in  fact  that  society  held  two  of  its  annual  meetings  at  the  former 
and  one  at  the  latter  place.  Many  articles  have  also  been  contrib- 
uted through  the  newspapers  describing  these  rocks.  A  number 
of  papers  have  also  been  piesented  on  the  field  at  Schwenksville, 
these  generally  call  attention  to  special  rocks  such  as  "Catch-me- 
not"  rock;  "Saul's  Rest"  and  "Indian  Kettle."  The  latter  hav- 
ing a  kettle-shaped  opening  of  eight  or  nine  gallons  capacity. 

devil's  den  at  GETTYSBURG. 

The  "Devil's  Den"  at  Gettysburg,  made  memorable  and  historic 
by  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg,  in  1863,  is  of  trap  rock,  which  be- 
longs to  the  same  series  as  that  in  Bucks  County.  In  1909  I 
sampled  the  rocks  at  that  place  for  chemical  analyses,  the  results 
of  which  are  appended  hereto. 

giant's  causeway,  county  ANTRIM,  IRELAND. 

The  northern  coast  of  Ireland,  for  many  miles,  is  composed  of 
trap  rock,  geologically  like  that  of  Bucks  County.  At  places  the 
clififs  rise  at  a  height  of  over  four  hundred  feet.  Underneath  the 
cliflfs,  along  the  water's  edge,  there  are  a  number  of  caves.  On 
shore  the  rocks  show  many  interesting  freaks  of  nature  which 
have  been  given  special  and  suggestive  names.  Isolated  pillars 
about  forty-five  feet  high,  are  called  "Giant's  Chimney  Tops."  A 
colonnade  of  pillars  is  called  the  "Giant's  Organ."  But  the  most 
interesting,  and  in  fact  puzzling  feature  is  the  "Giant's'  Cause- 
way," where  the  basaltic  rocks  are  not  deposited  in  layers,  nor  in 


220  THE   RINGING   ROCKS   OF  BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP 

boulders,  as  they  are  in  Bucks  County,  but  in  vertical  columns 
which  range  from  fifteen  to  twenty-four  inches  in  diameter,  and 
have  sides  with  many  angles.  Some  of  these  columns  have  five, 
some  six,  some  seven,  some  eight  and  a  few  with  nine  sides ;  there 
is  at  least  one  with  three  sides.  There  is  no  system  or  regularity 
about  their  placement,  the  prisms  with  different  angles  stand  side 
by  side,  and  yet  the  sides  are  of  such  uniformity  that  they  are 
fitted  together  with  precision,  and  the  joints  are  impervious  to 
water.  It  would,  of  course,  be  impossible  to  enter  a  sheet  of 
paper  between  them.  Vertically  they  are  all  jointed  together 
into  short,  irregular  lengths,  not  more  than  a  few  feet  long  that 
articulate  by  means  of  perfectly  fitted  convex  and  concave  joints 
and  form  true  columns.  These  convex  and  concave  joints  are 
not  always  at  the  same  end  of  the  sections,  but  are  reversed  with- 
out any  system  or  regularity. 

Etchings  from  photographs  of  the  Giant's  Causeway,  taken 
in  1906  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  are  shown  herewith. 

FINGAL's   cave,    ISLAND   OF   STAFFA,   SCOTLAND. 

Fingal's  Cave  on  the  southwestern  coast  of  the  Islet  of  Staft'a. 
Argyleshire,  Scotland,  seven  miles  off  the  west  coast  of  Mull,  and 
other  caves  in  that  isle,  contain  basaltic  rocks  of  similar  trap  rock 
formation. 

specific   GRAVITIES  AND   CHEMICAL   ANALYSES. 

The  specific  gravities  of  the  trap  rocks  from  the  four  Penn- 
sylvania fields  which  I  sampled  are  as  follows:  Bridgeton,  3.15; 
Stony  Point,  3.05 ;  Pottstown,  3.23 ;  Devil's  Den,  3.06. 

The  sampling  from  the  Bridgeton  field  for  chemical  analysis, 
reported  below,  was  made  up  of  many  small  pieces  chipped  from 
only  rocks  which  had  the  best  ringing  properties.  All  my  samples 
were  analyzed  in  the  laboratory  of  the  Thomas  Iron  Company, 
by  Mr.  Walter  Wyckoff,  chief  chemist. 

Some  of  the  specific  gravities  and  analyses  of  trap  rocks  re- 
ported in  the  New  Jersey  Geological  Survey,  particularly  for  the 
year  1907,  are  somewhat  similar  to  those  of  my  samples,  but  as 
a  rule  the  specific  gravities  are  less  in  the  New  Jersey  reports. 
No  test  has  come  to  my  notice  of  trap  rock  as  heavy  as  the  Potts- 
town samples,  which   (by  calculation)   weigh  202  pounds  to  the 


GIANTS   CAUSEWAY,   COUNTY  ANTRIM,   NORTH   COAST   OF   IRELAND. 
(Photographs  by  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.,  .July,  1906.) 


THE   RINGING   ROCKS   OF   BRIDGETON    TOWNSHIP  221 

cubic   foot.      For   comparison   I    will  state   that   Quincy   granite 
weighs  166  pounds  to  the  cubic  foot. 

Bridgeton  Devil's  Den 

Ringing  Rocks  Gettysburg,   Pa. 

Silica   52.68  53.09 

Alumina    11.86  15.67 

Lime    9.87  10.75 

Magnesia    8.99  6.50 

Oxide  of   Iron    (FCgOp..      12.73  11.00' 

Oxide  of  Manganese 0.20  0.20 

Phosphoric  Acid    0-1 1  0.14 

Sulphuric  Acid   0.07  0.07 

Titanic  Acid    0.63  Not  deter. 

Copper     Nil  Nil 

Potash    0.49  0.52 

Soda    1.23  1.38 

Loss  on  Ignition 0.45  0.53 

Loss   on   Analyses 0.69  0.15 

100.00  100.00 

Metallic  Iron 9.22  7.97 

Specific    Gravity    3.15  3.06 


Our  Local  Flora. 

BY  JOHN  A.   RUTH,  DURHAM,   PA. 
READ  BY  DR.   B.   F.   FACKENTHAL,  JR. 
(Ringing  Rocks  Meeting,  October  4,   1919.) 

THIS  consists  of  two  papers  read  before  the  Buckwampun  His- 
torical Society;  one  on  June  14,  1888,  and  the  other  on  June  8, 
1889.  They  were  therefore  not  prepared  specially  for  our  society, 
but  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Ringing  Rocks  meeting  was  held 
in  the  neighborhood  where  many  of  Mr.  Ruth's  specimens  were  gath- 
ered, the  papers  were  read  at  our  meeting  as  a  matter  of  local  interest 
and  are  now  printed  in  order  that  they  may  be  made  part  of  our  pro- 
ceedings and  not  become  lost  to  the  history  of  our  county. 

The  Ringing  Rocks  are  located  in  Bridgeton  township,  which  in 
1880  was  erected  out  of  part  of  Nockamixon  township,  and  is  therefore 
included  in  the  territory  described  by  Mr.  Ruth.  Buckwampun  is  in 
Springfield  township,  which  adjoins  both  Nockamixon  and  Durham 
townships. 

To  the  botanist  as  well  as  to  the  historian,  Buckwampun  is  a 
place  of  more  than  passing  interest.  Rich  as  it  is  in  the  legends 
and  historical  events  of  the  past,  it  is  not  less  so  in  the  abundance 
and  variety  of  its  natural  productions,  its  deep  shady  ravines,  its 
fine,  open  woods,  and  its  mossy  bogs  yield  floral  treasures  of  great 
interest  to  the  student  of  nature.     In  their  shady  retreats 

"Many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen" 

except  by  the  watchful  eye  of  the  botanist.  So  great  is  the  variety 
of  its  different  forms  of  vegetable  life,  that  it  would  take  years  of 
patient  study  and  research  to  become  familiar  with  them  all.  The 
number  of  species  of  flowering  plants,  ferns,  and  fern  allies  is 
large,  but  it  is  fully  equaled,  if  not  surpassed  by  the  lower  orders 
of  plant  life.  Most  prominent  among  these  are  the  mosses,  found 
in  great  profusion,  and  covering  the  earth  with  a  carpet  of  rich- 
est green.  They  retain  this  color  throughout  the  year  and  invite 
the  attention  of  collectors  at  all  seasons.  They  can  be  pressed 
and  laid  away  for  future  analysis,  as  drying  does  not  destroy 
their  characteristics.  However  much  they  may  become  dried  and 
shriveled,  they  will  expand  again  when  placed  in  water,  and  in  a 
short  time   are   as  good   for  study  as   fresh   specimens.     Their 


OUR    LOCAL    FLORA  223 

analysis  requires  a  good  microscope,  and  skill  in  handling  it,  but 
under  its  magnifying  powers  they  become  objects  of  surprising 
beauty.  About  nine  hundred  species  and  varieties  of  these  plants 
have  been  found  in  this  country,  north  of  the  Mexican  boundary, 
and  are  described  by  Lesquereux  and  James  in  their  manual. 
Three  hundred  and  twenty-five  species  were  collected  in  our 
neighboring  state.  New  Jersey,  by  the  late  C.  F.  Austin,  an  emi- 
nent student  of  mosses.  To  a  persevering  collector,  Buckwampun 
would  yield  a  large  number  of  species.  The  bogs  on  the  eastern 
slope  are  especially  rich.  Their  collection  and  study  would  be  an 
excellent  training  for  any  one  desiring  to  engage  in  scientific  re- 
search. Descending  in  the  scale  of  vegetable  life  we  next  come 
to  the  Fungi,  or  mushrooms  and  toadstools,  as  they  are  more 
commonly  called.  The  number  of  species  of  these  is  large.  They 
seem  to  thrive  under  the  most  unfavorable  conditions.  Many 
kinds  prefer  to  grow  on  decayed  vegetable  matter.  In  open 
woods  they  spring  up  from  the  rich  mould  formed  by  decaying 
leaves.  Stumps,  and  trunks  of  dead  trees  are  often  covered  by 
them.  Amid  death  and  decay  they  find  the  nourishment  necessary 
to  their  ephemeral  growth.  Many  species  of  fungi  are  poisonous, 
while  some  are  edible  and  nutritious.  Certain  species  of  them 
find  ready  sale  in  our  city  markets.  Squirrels  and  other  animals 
have  a  knowledge  of  their  nutritious  properties.  How  these  ani- 
mals distinguish  between  poisonous  and  edible  fungi  is  a  question 
for  scientists  to  decide.  As  in  human  families  a  few  vicious 
members  can  bring  those  related  to  them  under  suspicion,  so 
among  the  fungi  the  poisonous  species  have  brought  the  entire 
order  into  bad  repute.  Many  species  which  are  now  regarded  as 
deleterious,  are  no  doubt  harmless.  The  study  of  these  plants  is 
called  Mycology.  During  my  botanical  trips  to  Buckwampun 
my  attention  has  often  been  attracted  by  the  number  and  variety 
of  these  plants.  Many  of  them  are  delicately  colored,  and  to 
some  nature  has  given  forms  that  are  curious  and  often  beauti- 
ful. During  the  months  of  August  and  September  they  are  es- 
pecially abundant.  Still  lower  than  the  fungi  in  the  scale  of  vege- 
table life  are  the  lichens.  Buckwampun  has  many  representatives 
of  this  family.  The  trunks  of  trees,  rocks,  and  even  the  earth 
itself  is  in  many  places  covered  by  a  coat  of  lichen  gray  which 
helps  not  a  little  to  give  color  to  the  landscape.     One  of  our  most 


224  OUR   LOCAL    FLORA 

eminent  botanists  tells  us  that  in  1883  Dr.  Eckfeldt  of  Phila- 
delphia collected  sixty-five  species  of  these  plants  within  a  few 
hours  on  Haycock  mountain.  I  venture  to  say  that  Buckwampun 
is  equally  rich  in  them.  Interesting  as  are  the  orders  of  crypto- 
gramic  plants  that  have  been  mentioned,  they  receive  very  little 
attention  except  by  the  professional  botanist.  Their  study  is  too 
difficult  for  the  ordinary  student.  Only  the  specialist  becomes 
well  acquainted  with  their  structure  and  habits.  But,  because 
this  is  the  case,  let  us  not  suppose  that  these  lower  orders  of 
plants  are  useless.  They  were  created  for  a  purpose  and  even  the 
humblest  of  them  has  its  part  to  perform  in  vegetable  economy. 
Prof.  Steel,  speaking  of  these  plants  says :  "They  lie  at  the  foun- 
dation of  all  life.  Without  them  vegetable,  and  consequently,  ani- 
mal life  would  be  impossible.  They  are  the  first  to  grow  on 
cinders,  sands,  and  rocks.  The  last  they  gradually  disintegrate 
and  by  the  decay  of  successive  generations  form  at  length  a  soil 
capable  of  sustaining  plants  of  higher  order, — grains,  grasses, 
trees,  on  which  animals  may  live.  But  sooner  or  later  these  also 
perish,  and  then  the  crytogams  resume  their  sway.  On  fallen 
leaves  and  trunks  they  multiply,  encompassing,  penetrating,  con- 
suming, and  in  a  few  years  restore  to  the  earth  with  interest  the 
materials  which  they  had  borrowed."  Leaving  these  difficult  or- 
ders for  the  professional  botanists  let  us  turn  our  attention  to  the 
flowering  plants,  ferns  and  fern  allies  of  Buckwampun.  My  in- 
terest in  the  locality  began  when  a  boy.  In  later  years,  a  growing 
interest  in  local  botany  led  me  to  visit  well  remembered  haunts  in 
search  of  specimens  for  the  herbarium,  and  most  gratifying  have 
been  the  results.  No  attempt  has  been  made  to  get  a  complete 
list  of  all  the  plants  found  in  the  locality,  but  from  the  material 
collected  I  am  able  to  give  a  general  idea  of  some  of  its  most 
prominent  botanical  characteristics. 

For  many  years  Buckwampun  has  been  noted  for  the  abun- 
dance and  excellent  quality  of  its  chestnut  timber.  It  has  been 
the  source  that  has  supplied  the  farms  in  its  vicinity  with  chest- 
nut rails  and  posts,  for  fencing.  Its  flinty  soil  is  well  adapted  to 
the  growth  of  this  valuable  tree.  The  havoc  made  by  the  wood- 
man's axe  is  less  apparent  here  than  in  many  other  places.  Near- 
ly every  year  some  parts  of  the  hill  are  stripped  of  their  trees, 
but  the  soil  is  so  flinty  that  farming  it  is  almost  an  impossibility, 


OUR    LOCAL    FLORA  225 

and  a  new  growth  of  timber  is  usually  allowed  to  spring  up.  The 
probabilities  are  that  the  hill  will  always  retain  its  covering  of 
forest  to  the  lasting  benefit  of  the  surrounding  country.  Nor 
must  we  forget  the  fruit  of  this  tree. 

The  frosty  autumn  days  often  find  the  limbs  bending  beneath 
their  load  of  chestnuts,  and  the  young  and  old  unite  in  gathering 
the  crop.  This  yearly  amounts  to  many  bushels,  and  the  money 
obtained  by  their  sale  is  often  an  important  item  to  those  who 
gather  them.  Beside  their  money  value  they  often  bring  cheer  to 
the  fireside  during  the  long  winter  evenings.  What  boy  has  not 
enjoyed  the  luxury  of  sitting  by  a  redhot  stove  and  roasting 
chestnuts,  while  without  the  storm  was  roaring,  and  snow  was 
drifting  over  valley  and  hill. 

The  huckleberries,  of  which  Buckwampun  yields  such  an 
abundance,  belong  to  the  botanical  order  Ericaceae,  commonly 
known  as  the  Heath  family.  The  earliest  to  ripen  is  the  low  blue- 
berry. This  is  soon  followed  by  the  black  huckleberry,  distin- 
guished by  its  large,  black  berries,  and  resinous  dotted  leaves. 
These  two  species  supply  all  the  berries  that  are  picked  for  sale 
or  domestic  use.  Two  other  species  are  found.  The  swamp 
blueberry  is  occasionally  found  along  streams  and  grows  to  the 
height  of  six  or  eight  feet,  but  its  berries  are  not  sought  for.  The 
deerberry  is  very  abundant,  and  yields  large  quantities  of  green- 
ish berries,  as  large  as  cherries,  but  not  edible. 

Other  members  of  the  Heath  family  are  abundant.  In  early 
spring  the  woods  are  a  favorite  resort  for  collecting  Trailing  Ar- 
butus, the  most  lovely  of  all  our  spring  flowers.  Closely  related 
to  it  is  the  spicy  Wintergreen,  with  its  shining  evergreen  leaves, 
and  aromatic  flavored,  red  berries.  Two  species  of  Rhododen- 
dron are  among  the  most  beautiful  of  our  shrubs,  and  bear  masses 
of  delicately  colored  blossoms.  Two  species  of  Laural  abound 
and  are  botanical  named  Kalmia,  in  honor  of  Kalm,  a  Swedish 
botanist.  The  larger  of  these,  known  as  the  Mountain  Laurel 
bears  large  crymbs  of  delicately  tinted  flowers,  and  is  a  splendid 
shrub,  worthy  of  cultivation.  The  smaller  species  is  commonly 
called  Sheep  Laurel  or  Lambkill,  and  is  said  to  be  poisonous  to 
cattle.  The  parasitic  Heathworts  are  represented  by  the  Pine- 
say  and  the  Corpse  Plant.  The  latter  is  a  curious  plant,  several 
inches  in  height,  and  waxy-white  in  color.     On  being  dried  it  be- 


226  OUR    LOCAL    FLORA 

comes  black.  Few  plants  are  more  showy,  and  curious  in  struc- 
ture than  the  Orchid  family.  Eight  species  have  been  collected 
on  Buckwampun.  The  earliest  and  most  showy  of  these  is  the 
Moccason  Flower,  found  in  rich,  open  woods,  and  producing  a 
large  rose-purple  flower.  Along  the  streams  rising  on  the  eastern 
side  of  the  hill  may  be  found  the  Purple-fringed  Orchis,  the 
Three-toothed  Habenaria  and  the  Ladies  Tresses.  Along  the 
dry,  flinty  hillside  near  by  we  meet  the  Rattlesnake  Plantain,  and 
Slender  Ladies  Tresses.  Two  species  of  Coral-root  are  found 
growing  in  places  where  rich  leaf  mould  has  accumulated.  In 
spring  and  during  early  summer  the  different  species  of  violets 
are  conspicuous.  In  the  bogs  on  the  eastern  slope  may  be  found 
the  common  Blue  Violet  and  the  Sweet  White  Violet.  In  the 
open  woods  the  Hand-leaved,  and  the  Yellow  Violets  make  their 
appearance.  In  the  clearings  on  the  summit  where  the  soil  is 
very  flinty  and  sterile  we  may  find  large  beds  of  the  Bird-foot 
Violet.  In  the  fields  southwest  of  the  hill  we  have  occasionally 
found  the  Arrow-leaved  Violet.  All  these  species  produce  flow- 
ers of  great  beauty,  and  are  very  interesting  to  the  botanist. 
Among  the  rarest  plants  of  Buckwampun  is  the  Round-leaved 
Sundew.  Is  is  found  at  a  single  station  on  the  eastern  side  of 
the  hill,  in  a  large  bog.  It  has  not  been  found  elsewhere  in  our 
county,  only  in  the  Springfield  bogs,  where  Dr.  I.  S.  Moyer  of 
Quakertown  collected  it.  Not  far  from  this  station  we  discovered 
in  1887  a  variety  of  the  Canada  Rush  which  is  new  to  the  flora 
of  Bucks  county.  This  section  of  Buckwampun  is  a  good  local- 
ity for  those  interested  in  the  collection  of  grasses  and  sedges. 
The  sedges  are  among  the  most  difificult  plants  which  try  the  skill 
and  patience  of  the  botanist.  They  are  present  everywhere,  and 
especially  so  in  wet  meadows  where  they  crowd  out  the  more 
nutritious  grasses.  About  three  hundred  well  defined  species  are 
found  in  America.  Of  these  Dr.  T.  C.  Porter  of  Lafayette  Col- 
lege, Easton,  Pa.,  has  enumerated  ninety-eight  species'  and  twenty- 
four  varieties  as  found  in  Pennsylvania.  Prominent  among  those 
found  on  Buckwampun  are  the  Hop  Sedge,  the  Swollen-fruited, 
and  the  Rough-fruited  sedge.  Among  the  rarer  grasses  are  the 
Fowl  Meadow-grass,  the  Obtuse  Eatonia,  and  the  Marsh  Oat- 
Grass.  All  of  these  are  among  the  rarer  plants  of  our  county. 
Of  the  Lily  family  we  might  name  the  Indian  Cucumber  Root, 


OUR    LOCAL    FLORA  227 

and  the  American  White  Hellebore.  The  latter  is  a  medicinal 
plant  and  in  the  south,  its  roots  which  are  poisonous,  are  gathered 
by  the  natives.  While  enumerating  a  few  of  the  most  prominent, 
as  well  as  some  of  the  rarer  plants  of  Buckwampun,  we  must 
not  forget  the  ferns,  and  their  relations.  They  belong  to  that 
class  of  plants  which  do  not  produce  flowers,  but  what  they  lack 
in  being  flowerless,  they  make  up  in  their  exquisite  foliage. 
Buckwampun  is  a  rich  locality  for  those  interested  in  the  collec- 
tion of  these  plants,  whether  for  the  herbarium,  or  for  decorative 
purposes.  Along  the  streams  may  be  found  luxuriant  specimens 
of  Flowering  Fern,  Claytons  Fern,  Cinnamon  Fern,  several  fine 
species  of  Shield  Ferns  and  very  rarely  Clayton's  Goldies.  The 
latter  often  grows  to  the  height  of  four  feet.  It  was  discovered  by 
John  Goldie,  a  Scotch  botanist,  in  whose  honor  it  was  named. 
The  Sensitive  Fern  is  abundant  along  all  of  the  streams.  In  the 
open  woods  we  may  find  the  Grape  Fern,  the  Beech  Fern,  and 
the  most  graceful  of  all  our  ferns,  the  Maiden-hair  Fern. 
Of  the  Fern  allies  there  are  found  the  small  and  moss- 
like seaginella  and  two  species  of  Club-mosses.  The  Flat-Club- 
moss  is  an  elegant  plant  for  holiday  decorations.  Such  are 
some  of  the  botanical  features  of  Buckwampun.  Much  more 
might  be  said  of  them  but  time  forbids.  Their  description  is 
worthy  of  the  efiforts  of  a  much  abler  pen  than  mine.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  in  the  future  the  locality  may  be  more  frequently 
visited  by  botanists,  and  that  at  a  not  far  distant  day  we  may 
have  a  complete  catalogue  of  its  flora. 

To  the  lover  of  nature,  the  science  of  botany  presents  a  most 
inviting  field  for  research.  Plant  life  is  found  everywhere,  and 
its  mysteries  are  ever  involving  solution.  The  study  of  its  prob- 
lems brings  us  in  contact  with  much  that  is  wonderful  and  beau- 
tiful, and  increases  our  reverence  for  Him  who  has  so  mar- 
velously  wrought  in  the  creation  of  even  the  commonest  plant. 
A  large  amount  of  botanical  science  is  so  simple  that  any  one 
of  ordinary  ability  can  acquire  it.  On  the  other  hand  many  of 
its  problems  have  depths  that  reach  to  the  furthermost  limits  of 
human  thought  and  research.  These  questions  have  puzzled 
some  of  the  profoundest  scholars  of  our  age. 

The  study  of  botany  has  made  rapid  progress  within  the  last 


228  OUR    LOCAL    FLORA 

ten  years ;  especially  may  this  be  said  of  the  botany  of  our  own 
country.  We  have  not  only  a  number  of  men  and  women  who 
are  the  equals  of  the  best  botanists  of  the  old  world,  but  we  have, 
scattered  throughout  the  land,  a  large  number  of  amateur  botan- 
ists. This  latter  class  are  men  and  women  who  do  not  study 
botany  as  a  means  of  support,  but  follow  it  during  their  leisure 
hours  as  a  means  of  recreation.  It  is  to  this  class  of  students 
we  owe  many  of  our  best  local  floras,  which  have  been  useful  to 
the  professional  botanist  in  classifying  and  describing  the  botany 
of  our  country.  The  collecting  grounds  of  these  local  botanists 
are  usually  of  limited  extent  but  have,  in  many  cases,  been  ex- 
plored with  great  thoroughness  and  have  yielded  some  very  un- 
expected results.  Bucks  county  has  been  fortunate  in  having 
within  her  borders  a  number  of  enthusiastic  workers  of  this 
class,  and  as  a  result  our  county  flora  is  equal  to  that  of  any 
county  in  the  State. 

Some  years  ago  the  idea  suggested  itself  to  the  writer,  to  cata- 
logue the  flora  of  the  townships  of  Durham  and  Nockamixon.  A 
herbarium  was  started  in  which  were  preserved  specimens  of  all 
plants  collected,  to  be  used  for  study  and  future  reference.  It 
is  my  purpose,  in  this  paper,  to  present  some  of  the  results  of 
this  work.^ 

Durham  and  Nockamixon  townships  have  an  area  of  about 
thirty-six  square  miles,  of  which  the  former  covers  about  one- 
fourth,  and  the  latter  the  remaining  three-fourths.  The  geo- 
logical formation  of  these  townships  is  favorable  to  a  varied 
growth  of  plants.  In  Durham  we  have  the  fertile  limestone  val- 
ley of  the  Durham  creek  with  its  characteristic  flora.  Bordering 
this  valley  on  the  north  and  south  are  ranges  of  granite  hills 
favorable  to  the  growth  of  some  of  the  species  more  common  to 
northern  latitudes.  In  among  these  hills  are  several  small  streams, 
having  their  sources  in  cold  mountain  bogs,  which  are  the  homes 
of  some  of  our  most  beautiful  as  well  as  rarest  plants.  South  of 
these  hills  is  the  red  sandstone,  or  red  shale  formation  as  it  is 
more  commonly  called.  This  formation  begins  at  Monroe  on 
the  Delaware  river,  and  covers  the  southern  part  of  Durham  and 

1  Mr.  John  A.  Ruth  died  at  Clifton,  N.  J.,  February  26,  1918.  His  her- 
barium, containing  about  8,000  specimens,  all  splendidly  mounted  and  cata- 
logued fell  into  the  hands  of  B.  P.  Fackenthal,  Jr.,  who  has  loaned  it  to  the 
Academy  of  Natural  Science  at  Philadelphia. 


OUR    LOCAL    FLORA  229 

all  of  Nockamixon  townships.  In  the  latter  township  it  is  broken 
by  a  trap  dyke  of  considerable  extent,  of  which  ringing  rocks 
form  a  part.  These  widely  dilTering  formations  give  important 
variations  to  the  soil,  w^hich  also  indicates  variations  in  the  plants 
found  growing  therein.  Plants,  like  human  beings,  do  not  thrive 
amid  unfavorable  surroundings  and  generally  choose  those  soils 
which  are  best  adapted  to  their  growth. 

A  comparison  of  our  local  fiora  with  that  of  other  sections  of 
our  country  is  of  some  interest.  The  first  attempt  to  catalogue 
the  plants  of  Bucks  county  was  made  by  Dr.  I.  S.  Moyer  of 
Ouakertown,  Pa.  This  catalogue  was  published  in  1876,  and 
enumerates  1,168  species  and  varieties.  Since  that  date  many 
new  plants  have  been  found,  and  our  flora  now  (1889)  numbers 
about  1,300  species.-  These  have  been  collected  within  an  area 
of  about  six  hundred  square  miles.  The  number  of  plants  thus 
far  collected  in  Durham  and  Nockamixon  is  eight  hundred  and 
forty-seven,  showing  that  about  two-thirds  of  all  the  plants 
known  to  our  county  may  be  found  in  these  two  townships.  The 
Rocky  Mountain  Flora,  published  several  years  ago  by  Prof. 
Coulter,  describes  2,167  species,  found  on  an  area  of  460,000 
square  miles.  From  this  we  see  that  our  small  area  of  thirty-six 
square  miles  has  more  than  one-third  as  many  plants  as  the  en- 
tire Rocky  Mountain  region.  Our  flora  numbers  about  one  four- 
teenth (seven  per  cent)  of  that  of  the  entire  United  States. 
These  facts  may  be  a  cause  of  some  local  pride.  We  may  well 
feel  gratified  that  this  locality,  so  richly  blessed  in  many  of  the 
good  things  of  earth,  is  also  bountilfully  favored  with  plants 
and  herbs. 

The  valley  of  the  Delaware  will  first  claim  our  attention.  It 
forms  the  eastern  boundary  of  both  townships  and  has  the  flora 
that  is  peculiar  to  our  richer  valleys.  The  banks  of  this  beautiful 
stream  are  a  rich  collecting  ground  for  the  botanist ;  seeds  from 
more  northern  localities  are  brought  here  by  the  annual  freshets, 
and  spring  up.     Growing  in  the  river  or  partially  covered  by  its 

2  In  1906  Dr.  C.  D.  Fretz  of  Sellersville,  Pa.,  revised  and  re-Issued  the 
catalogue  of  plants  prepared  by  Dr.  Moyer  in  1876,  to  which  he  added  415 
species  and  varieties,  making  up  to  that  date  (1906)  1,581  species  and  va- 
rieties found  witliin  the  county  of  Bucks.  Three  species  added,  Tulipa  syl- 
vestris  (Wild  Tulip),  Vicio  villosa  (Hairy  Vetch)  and  Allium  carinatum 
(Keeled  Garlic)  were  then  new  in  the  United  States.  Dr.  Porter  later  dis- 
covered the  Hydrophyllum  Candense  (Canada  W^ater-leaf)  growing  in  the 
triassic  at  the  base  of  the  Nockamixon  palisades. — B.  P.  P.,  Jr. 


230  OUR   LOCAL    FLORA 

waters  may  be  found  several  varieties  of  Pondweed,  Ditch-moss, 
Eel-grass,  a  species  of  Quillwort,  and  other  aquatic  plants.  Along 
the  banks  may  be  found  the  New  England  Aster,  several  mem- 
bers of  the  Sunflower  family,  an  elegant  species  of  Stone-crop 
and  many  of  our  finest  grasses  and  sedges.  Wyker's  Island 
(formerly  called  Laughrey's  Island),  near  Kintersville,  is  a  place 
of  more  than  common  botanical  interest.  In  summer  this  island 
has  the  appearance  of  a  tropical  jungle,  so  dense  is  the  mass  of 
vegetation.  Two  hundred  different  species  have  been  found  there. 
Among  the  rarer  plants  is  the  Fresh  Water  Cord  Grass,  found 
nowhere  else  in  the  Delaware  valley ;  several  fine  Asters,  the 
beautiful  Lupine,  the  Ground  Cherry,  Cardinal  Flower  and 
Spiked  Loosestrife  have  found  a  home  there.  Our  most  famous 
botanical  locality  is  the  narrows  or  palisades.  Its  rare  plants 
have  long  attracted  the  attention  of  some  of  our  ablest  botanists ; 
among  these  may  be  mentioned  Dr.  Thomas  C.  Porter  of  Lafay- 
ette College,  Prof.  Eugene  A.  Rau  of  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  a  noted 
authority  on  mosses ;  Dr.  A.  P.  Barber,  a  well-known  collector. 
Dr.  C.  D.  Fretz  of  Sellersville,  Pa..  Harold  W.  Pretz  of  Allen- 
town,  Pa.,  and  Dr.  I.  S.  Moyer,  the  author  of  our  county  flora. 
Here,  at  an  elevation  of  more  than  three  hundred  feet  above  the 
river,  in  1867,  Dr.  Porter  discovered  Rhodiola  rosea  L.  (Rose- 
root).  This  plant  grows  in  some  of  the  most  inaccessable  places, 
and  although  abundant  here,  is  found  at  but  two  other  places  in 
eastern  United  States.  It  is  an  Alpine  plant,  more  common  to 
northern  regions,  and  its  presence  here  is  regarded  as  a  relic  of 
the  glacial  epoch.  Here  are  also  found  the  Mountain  Maple, 
two  fine  species  of  Trillium,  Canada  Violet,  Ginseng,  American 
Yew,  Round-leafed  Gooseberry,  Rhodiola  rosea  L.,  some  rare 
ferns,  and  a  number  of  fine  grasses  and  sedges.  Mosses  and 
lichens  are  unusually  abundant,  and  are  worthy  of  special  study. 
The  larger  part  of  Nockamixon  township  is  situated  on  an  ex- 
tensive trap  dyke.  In  many  places  the  surface  is  covered  with 
boulders  of  trap  rock,  some  of  them  of  immense  size.  This  sec- 
tions is  commonly  known  as  the  "swamps".  The  soil  is  clay, 
and  in  many  places  very  wet.  The  township  has  a  large  extent 
of  fine  meadow  land  through  which  run  fine  deep,  sluggish 
streams.  In  these  streams  the  collector  may  look  for  the  Yellow 
Pond  Lily,  several  specimens  of  Pondweed,  Engleman's  Quill- 
wort, Water  Milfoil  and  Golden  Club.    The  flora  of  the  meadows 


230  OUR   LOCAL    FLORA 

waters  may  be  found  several  varieties  of  Pondweed,  Ditch-moss, 
Eel-grass,  a  species  of  Ouillwort,  and  other  aquatic  plants.  Along 
the  banks  may  be  found  the  New  England  Aster,  several  mem- 
bers of  the  Sunflower  family,  an  elegant  species  of  Stone-crop 
and  many  of  our  finest  grasses  and  sedges.  Wyker's  Island 
(formerly  called  Laughrey's  Island),  near  Kintersville,  is  a  place 
of  more  than  common  botanical  interest.  In  summer  this  island 
has  the  appearance  of  a  tropical  jungle,  so  dense  is  the  mass  of 
vegetation.  Two  hundred  different  species  have  been  found  there. 
Among  the  rarer  plants  is  the  Fresh  Water  Cord  Grass,  found 
nowhere  else  in  the  Delaware  valley ;  several  fine  Asters,  the 
beautiful  Lupine,  the  Ground  Cherry,  Cardinal  Flower  and 
Spiked  Loosestrife  have  found  a  home  there.  Our  most  famous 
botanical  locality  is  the  narrows  or  palisades.  Its  rare  plants 
have  long  attracted  the  attention  of  some  of  our  ablest  botanists ; 
among  these  may  be  mentioned  Dr.  Thomas  C.  Porter  of  Lafay- 
ette College,  Prof.  Eugene  A.  Rau  of  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  a  noted 
authority  on  mosses ;  Dr.  A.  P.  Barber,  a  well-known  collector. 
Dr.  C.  D.  Fretz  of  Sellersville,  Pa.,  Harold  W.  Pretz  of  Allen- 
town,  Pa.,  and  Dr.  I.  S.  Moyer,  the  author  of  our  county  flora. 
Here,  at  an  elevation  of  more  than  three  hundred  feet  above  the 
river,  in  1867,  Dr.  Porter  discovered  Rhodiola  rosea  L.  (Rose- 
root).  This  plant  grows  in  some  of  the  most  inaccessable  places, 
and  although  abundant  here,  is  found  at  but  two  other  places  in 
eastern  United  States.  It  is  an  Alpine  plant,  more  common  to 
northern  regions,  and  its  presence  here  is  regarded  as  a  relic  of 
the  glacial  epoch.  Here  are  also  found  the  Mountain  Maple, 
two  fine  species  of  Trillium,  Canada  Violet,  Ginseng,  American 
Yew,  Round-leafed  Gooseberry,  Rhodiola  rosea  L.,  some  rare 
ferns,  and  a  number  of  fine  grasses  and  sedges.  Mosses  and 
lichens  are  unusually  abundant,  and  are  worthy  of  special  study. 
The  larger  part  of  Nockamixon  township  is  situated  on  an  ex- 
tensive trap  dyke.  In  many  places  the  surface  is  covered  with 
boulders  of  trap  rock,  some  of  them  of  immense  size.  This  sec- 
tions is  commonly  known  as  the  "swamps".  The  soil  is  clay, 
and  in  many  places  very  wet.  The  township  has  a  large  extent 
of  fine  meadow  land  through  which  run  fine  deep,  sluggish 
streams.  In  these  streams  the  collector  may  look  for  the  Yellow 
Pond  Lily,  several  specimens  of  Pondweed,  Fugleman's  Ouill- 
wort, Water  Milfoil  and  Golden  Club.    The  flora  of  the  meadows 


VIEW  OF  DELAWARE  RIVER,  TAKEN  FROM  TOP  OF  THE  NOCKAMIXON  PAI^ISAPES. 
Showing  Delaware  Division  Canal ;  Narrowsville  Locks,  Old  Colonial  Gristmill  and  Laughrey's  or  Wyker's  Island  on  which  there 
was  a  sawmill  erected  in  1822,  which  was  washed  away  by  the  flood  of  January  1841.  That  island  is  rich  in  flora  and  many  rare 
specimens,  particularly  of  grasses  were  gathered  there  by  J.  H.  &  H.  F.  Ruth.  The  letter  "P"^  indicates  the  location  of  the  Indian 
Village  Pechotjueolin,  on  the  peninsula  north  of  where  Gallows  Run  empties  into  the  Delaware  River,  as  discovered  and  descriped 
by  .lohn  A.   Ituth.     Laughrey's   Island   was  patented  to  William   ICrwin,  Jan.   21,   1S12,    (Patent  book  H,  Vol.   7,  page   26). 


OUR   LOCAL    FLORA  231 

is  a  constant  surprise.  In  the  month  of  June  they  are  covered 
with  a  rich  carpet  of  grass  and  flowers,  and  present  a  most  beau- 
tiful sight.  To  the  student  interested  in  grasses  and  sedges 
these  meadows  are  of  special  interest.  They  produce  some  of  the 
finest  and  rarest  of  these  plant^  Here  we  find  the  Canada  Lily, 
Cardinal  Flower,  Marsh  Marigold,  Closed  Gentian,  Painted  Cup, 
Fringed  Orchid  and  Cotton  Grass.  Among  the  trees  we  find 
splendid  specimens  of  Hickory,  Swamp  Oak,  Pin  Oak  and  Maple 
and  occasionally  the  Persimmon.  The  beauty  of  these  meadows 
in  summer  is  difficult  to  describe,  they  must  be  seen  in  order  to 
be   fully  appreciated. 

Some  of  our  rarest  plants  are  found  in  but  a  single  locality. 
An  example  of  this  kind  is  the  Round-leafed  Sundew,  which  is 
found  at  a  single  spot  on  Buckwampun  mountain.  A  rare 
plant  known  as  Adder's  Tongue  has  its  home  in  a  swamp  near 
Monroe  in  Durham  township.  Along  the  Delaware  canal  near 
Kintersville  grows  the  Wood  Rush,  an  elegant  plant  not  found 
elsewhere  in  Pennsylvania ;  close  by  is  a  variety  of  Cotton  Grass 
equally  rare.  The  rocky  hillside  at  Monroe  is  the  home  of  several 
rare  grasses  and  sedges.  Near  Rattle  Snake  Hill  in  Durham, 
has  lately  been  discovered  a  single  specimen  of  White  Gentian, 
a  plant  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  state  east  of  the  Allegheny 
Mountains.  Growing  with  it  is  a  form  of  Desmodium  known 
only  in  Pennsylvania  on  Montgomery  Island  in  the  Susquehannna 
river,  where  it  was  collected  by  that  celebrated  botanist,  Dr. 
Muhlenberg.  Several  of  our  plants,  as  yet  comparatively  new  to 
botanical  science,  and  not  described  in  the  works  on  botany  com- 
monly used  in  our  schools,  are  described  in  the  pages  of  the 
Torrcy  Botanical  Bulletin  and  Dr.  Gray's  Flora  of  North  America. 
Thirty  species  have  been  found  that  are  new  to  the  county  flora. 
Large  as  is  the  number  of  species  collected,  and  gratifying  as 
the  result,  there  is  yet  abundant  room  for  further  discoveries. 
The  valley  of  the  Durham  creek  has  been  very  little  explored, 
and  will  no  doubt  yield  some  new  plants.  The  Nockamixon 
swamps  await  some  energetic  collector  who  will  thoroughly  ex- 
plore their  rugged  hills  and  secluded  valleys  and  make  known  to 
the  world  their  wealth  of  floral  treasures.  To  all  who  will  en- 
gage in  this  work  we  can  promise  an  abundance  of  healthful  ex- 
ercise and  the  pleasure  of  discovering  new  species,  a  pleasure 
which  is  known  only  to  the  botanist. 


Biographical  Notice  of  Clarence  Decker  Hotchkiss. 


BY  WARREN   S.   ELY,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 


(Doylestown  Meeting,   January   17,    1920.) 

CLARENCE  D.  HOTCHK'LSS,  for  twenty-four  years  an 
active  member  of  the   Bucks   County   Historical   Society, 
and  for  fourteen  years  its  efficient  secretary  and  treasurer, 
died  suddenly  January  14,  1920. 

Mr.  Hotchkiss  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  August  4,  1857.  He 
was  a  son  of  George  W.  and  Williamina  (Bittenbender)  Hotch- 
kiss. On  the  paternal  side 
he  was  a  lineal  descendant 
of  Samuel  and  Elizabeth 
Hotchkiss  who  were  mar- 
ried at  what  is  now  New 
Haven,  Conn.,  in  1632.  The 
family  were  residents  of 
New  York  and  vicinity  for 
several  generations.  Sam- 
uel Hotchkiss,  the  great- 
grandfather of  Clarence  D. 
was  commissioned  Master 
in  the  United  States  Navy, 
July  18,  1788,  and  served 
in  that  capacity  until  1799, 
when  he  resigned  and  set- 
tled in  the  Wyoming  Val- 
ley of  Pennsylvania.  He 
married  Sarah  Decker  of 
Fort  Ticonderoga.  His  son  George  was  reared  in  the  Wyoming 
Valley,  and  his  son  George  W.,  the  father  of  Clarence  D.,  the 
subject  of  this  notice,  married  Williamina  Bittenbender,  daugh- 
ter of  William  Bittenbender,  of  Easton.  He  removed  first  to 
Philadelphia,  and  later  to  Doylestown.  Through  his  mother,  Mr. 
Hotchkiss  was  a  descendant  of  Colonel  Peter  Keichlein,  of 
Easton. 

Clarence  D.  Hotchkiss  was  educated  at  the  public  schools  of 
Philadelphia  and  the  Wyoming  Seminary,  acquiring  practically 
a  college  education,  and  studied  under  private  tutors.     He  was 


CLARENCE    D.    HOTCHKISS 

1S57-1920 


BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTICE  OF  CLARENCE  DECKER   HOTCHKISS  233 

engaged  in  the  drug  business  in  Philadelphia  for  a  short  time 
before  the  removal  of  the  family  to  Doylestown,  where  he  at 
once  entered  the  office  of  the  Doylcstozvn  Democrat,  of  which 
Gen.  W.  W.  H.  Davis,  our  late  president,  was  editor  and 
proprietor. 

From  that  time  until  his  death  Mr.  Hotchkiss  was  engaged  in 
the  newspaper  business.  After  a  few  years  spent  in  Doylestown, 
he  served  on  the  staff  of  newspapers  in  Philadelphia,  Atlantic 
City,  N.  J.,  and  Lansdale,  Pa.,  and  subsequently  founded  the 
Apprentice's  Journal  of  Philadelphia,  which  he  conducted  until 
1885,  when,  returning  to  Doylestown,  he  again  took  a  position 
on  the  stafif  of  the  Doylestozvn  Democrat  which  he  held  until 
General  Davis  sold  out  his  interest  in  that  paper  in  1890,  when 
he  accepted  a  position  on  the  reportial  stafif  of  the  Bucks  County 
Intelligencer,  daily  and  weekly,  with  which  he  was  connected 
until  his  death,  having  served  several  years  as  its  editor  in  chief. ^ 

Mr.  Hotchkiss  and  his  family  were  members  of  the  Doylestown 
Presbyterian  Church.  He  was  the  first  president  of  the  Bucks 
County  Christian  Endeavor  Union,  and  was  always  one  of  the 
most  active  workers  in  the  organization.  He  was  a  stockholder 
and  director  of  the  Intelligencer  Company,  secretary  of  the 
Press  League  of  Bucks  and  Montgomery  Counties;  trustee  of 
Doylestown  Fire  Company  No.  1,  from  its  organization  until 
his  death ;  secretary  of  the  Doylestown  Board  of  Health  from  its 
organization  in  1894.  He  was  a  member  of  Aquetong  Lodge, 
No.  193,  I.  O.  O.  F.,  and  of  Doylestown  Encampment,  No.  35, 
L  O.  O.  F.,  being  a  past  officer  and  one  of  the  most  active  mem- 
bers of  both  organizations  until  his  death,  filling  the  office  of 
trustee  in  both  for  many  years,  as  well  as  that  of  Assistant  De- 
gree Master.  He  was  also  a  member  of  Doylestown  Lodge  No. 
245  F.  and  A.  M. 

Mr.  Hotchkiss  became  a  member  of  the  Bucks  County  His- 
torical Society  January  21,  1896,  and  always  took  an  active  in- 
terest in  its  affairs.  He  was  elected  its  secretary  and  treasurer 
June  14,  1896.  and  a  director  January  14,  1906. 

Possessed  to  a  marked  degree  of  fine  social  qualities,  earnest 
and  energetic  in  everything  that  he  undertook,  deeply  interested 
in  all  that  pertained  to  the  best  interests  of  the  community  in 

1  On  June  5,  1915,  a  dinner  was  given  at  the  Fountain  House,  Doylestown, 
in  honor  of  his  association  with  the  Intelligencer  for  twenty-five  years. 


234  BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTICE  OF  CLARENCE  DECKER   HOTCHKISS 

which  he  Hved.  he  was  called  into  service  along  many  lines  of 
public  welfare,  and  rendered  to  each  the  loyal,  kindly,  and  en- 
ergetic service  that  made  him  a  valuable  and  popular  man  in  his 
home  community. 

The  death  of  Mr.  Hotchkiss  occurred  but  three  days  before 
our  annual  meeting  held  January  17,  1920,  and  it  was  unani- 
mously decided  to  dispense  with  all  literary  exercises  and  de- 
vote the  day  to  his  memory.  After  the  transaction  of  the  neces- 
sary business,  the  meeting  adjourned,  and  the  members  attended 
the  funeral  of  our  deceased  secretary.  The  afternoon  session 
was  entirely  devoted  to  memorial  exercises  in  his  honor.  Many 
eulogistic  addresses  were  delivered  and  ex-Judge  Harman 
Yerkes,  Warren  S.  Ely,  and  Miss  Mary  DuBois,  who  were  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  draw  up  suitable  resolutions  on  his  death, 
prepared  and  submitted  the  following,  which  were  adopted : 

"WHEREAS,  Clarence  D.  Hotchkiss,  became  a  member  of  the  Bucks 
County  Historical  Society  January  21,  1896,  was  elected  Secretary  and 
Treasurer  June  14,  1906,  and  was  elected  a  Director  on  January  16, 
1912,  and  filled  these  several  positions  with  eminent  fidelity  and  ability 
until  his  sudden  death,  on  the  morning  of  Januarj^  14,  1920,     And 

"WHEREAS,  it  seems  especially  fitting  that  the  officers  and  members 
of  this  Society  gathered  at  our  annual  meeting  this  17th  day  of  Janu- 
ary, 1920,  should  give  some  testimony  of  our  appreciation  of  the  many 
estimable  qualities  of  our  deceased  colleague,  in  recognition  of  his  ser- 
vices and  our  respect  for  his  memorj': 

"THEREFORE,  Be  it  Resolved,  that  in  the  death  of  Mr.  Clarence 
D.  Hotchkiss,  this  Society  has  sustained  the  loss  of  a  most  faithful, 
efficient  officer,  whose  position,  not  only  as  a  member  and  active  worker 
in  this  Society  and  as  an  honored  and  respected  member  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  has  lived,  cannot  well  be  filled,  and  whose  death 
will  long  be  mourned  and  memory  cherished  by  his  associates  and 
neighbors, 

"RESOLVED,  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  published  in  the 
newspapers  of  Doylestown  and  forwarded  to  the  members  of  his  family. 
Resolved  that  the  meeting  adjourn  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  our  of- 
ficers and  members  to  attend  the  funeral  of  the  deceased,  this  afternoon.". 

Mr.  Hotchkiss  married  June  19,  1878,  Albertine  Walton  of 
Doylestown,  who  with  a  son,  George  S.  Hotchkiss,  who  succeeded 
his  father  as  editor  of  the  Doylcsto^cn  Daily  Intelligencer,  and  a 
daughter,  Sarah,  wife  of  H.  J.  Shellenberger,  editor  of  The  Call, 
a  newspaper  published  at  New  Cumberland,  Pa.,  survive  him. 


An  Ancient  Indian  Tobacco  Pipe  from  Bucks  County. 


BY  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Buckingham  Meeting  House,   Meeting,   June   12,   1920.) 

MR.  MATTHIAS  HALL,  who  has  kindly  presented  this 
tobacco  pipe  to  our  society,  will  tell  you  how  it  came  into 
the   possession   of   his    family   many   years   ago,   upon   a 

farm  on  Pebble  Hill  near  Doylestown. 

The  pipe  belongs  to  a  class  of  objects  made  or  decorated  by 

Indians   with  cast  lead   or   pewter.      Numerous   pipes    from   the 

red  pipe  stone,  or  cat- 
linite  quarry,  Minne- 
sota, have  been  deco- 
rated by  Indians  by 
pouring  molten  lead 
upon  incisions  in  the 
stone.  W.  M.  Bea- 
champ  illustrates  pipes 
made  entirely  of  cast 
lead,  by  Indians  in 
New  York.^  Some  of 
these  were  burned  up 
in  the  fire  at  the  state- 
house  in  Albany.  In- 
dian cast  lead  or  pew- 
ter pipes  have  been 
found,  and  are  now 
shown,  in  museums  in 
Canada.  The  Amer- 
FiGURE  1  ican    Indian    Museum 

Delaware  Indian  wooden  tobacco  pipe  inlaid     pvpavpfprl   at  Ipact  r,nf^ 
with  lead,  presented  to  the  Society  by  Matthias     excdvateo  ar  leaSt  one 

Hall  of  wrightstown.  of  these  cast  lead  or 

pewter  pipes,  in  the  Delaware  Indian  burial  ground  at  the  "Misink 
flats"  a  few  years  ago.-    But  this  pipe  of  ours,  like  several  which 

1  Metallic  Implements  of  the  New  York  Indians,  by  W.  M.  Beau- 
champ,  New  York  State  Museum  Bulletin  No.  55,  1902.  Figures  79, 
127,  130,  145,  146,  etc. 

-  Exploration  of  a  Munsie  Cemetery  near  Montague,  N.  J.,  by  G. 
G.  Heye  and  G.  H.  Pepper.  American  Indian  Museum,  New  York, 
Plate  13. 


236 


AN  ANCIENT  INDIAN  TOBACCO  PIPE  FROM  BUCKS  COUNTY 


Col.  Paxson  has  shown  you,  belongs  to  the  rare  class  in  which 
the  molten  metal  has  been  poured  upon  wood,  not  upon  stone. 
In  this  pipe  you  see  (when  turned  toward  the  smoker),  the  face 
of  a  turtle  or  snake  still  showing  traces  of  a  red  pigment.  The 
figure  of  another  turtle  (the  totem  of  one  of  the  three  clans  of 
then  Lenni  Lenape  or  Delware  Indians  who  inhabited  Bucks 
county),  has  been  cut 
into  the  wood,  and  shows 
in  the  metal  around  the 
orifice  of  the  tobacco 
hole  or  bowl,  the  inter- 
ior of  which  bowl  is  en- 
tirely lined  with  the  cast 
material,  a  result  wdiich 
could  have  been  accom- 
plished either  by  filling 
up  the  bowl  with  molten 
lead  and  hollowing  it 
out,  or  suspending  a  ball 
of  clay  in  the  bowl  dur- 
ing the  casting. 

The  discovery  of  ob- 
jects like  this  once  raised 
the  question  whether  the 
prehistoric  Indian  un- 
derstood the  art  of  cast- 
ing in  lead  before  the 
coming  of  the  white 
men,  which  may  now 
be  answered  as  follows : 
Museum  in  Washington 


FIGURE  2 
Delaware     Indian    wooden     tobacco     pipe. 
Top  view  of  Figure  1  showing  a  turtle  inlaid 
in  lead  around  the  tobacco  bowl. 


First,  the  authorities  at  the  National 
and  in  the  far  west,  inform  us  that 
none  of  the  lead  decorated  catlinite  pipes  thus  far  found  have, 
in  their  opinion,  been  made  by  Indians  before  white  contact. 
Second,  we  learn  from  the  Davenport  (Iowa)  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences, the  Museum  of  the  American  Indian,  New  York  and  else- 
where, that  no  casting  in  lead  or  pewter,  of  prehistoric  date,  has 
yet  been  found  in  any  of  the  mounds. 

Third,  according  to  Beauchamp,  Roger  Williams  says  in  the 
seventeenth  century   (1643)  that  the  art  of  casting  in  lead  was 


AN  ANCIENT  INDIAN  TOBACCO  PIPE  FROM  BUCKS  COUNTY  237 

very  early  learned  by  the  New  England  Indians  from  the  white 
men.  Fourth,  this  statement  is  all  the  more  conclusive  and  com- 
prehensive, when  we  reflect  that  guns,  shooting  leaden  bullets, 
were  among  the  first  objects  sold  by  white  traders  to  Indians  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  that  the  purchase  of  such  a  gun 
compelled  the  Indian  to  buy  a  store  of  pure  lead,  and  a  bullet- 
mould  with  it ;  in  other  words  to  immediately  learn  the  art  of 
melting  and  casting  pure  lead,  in  order  to  make  his  weapon  ef- 
fective ;  and  having  done  so,  we  can  understand  that  under  the 
tuition  of  white  traders  he  would  soon  have  cast  the  material 
into  other  forms  than  bullets. 

Fifth.  To  the  writer's  knowledge,  no  geologist  asserts  that  pure 
native  lead  has  been  found  in  the  northern  United  States.  If 
found  in  the  form  of  an  ore  (galena),  it  would  have  been  of  no 
more  use  to  the  Indian  than  any  other  piece  of  hard  or  soft  rock, 
it  therefore  follow^s  that  the  stores  of  lead,  purchased  by  Indians 
from  traders,  were  not  fragments  of  galena,  but  pigs  or  ingots  of 
pure  metal,  smelted  out  of  the  ore  in  Europe,  brought  over  here 
and  thus  sold  to  the  natives.  When  the  Indian  loaded  himself  down 
with  a  bag  or  pounch  of  this  heavy  strange  material,  the  inference 
is  irresistable,  that  he  did  not  carry  it  long,  but  soon  hid  it  in  the 
woods,  at  places  available  in  the  range  of  his  hunting  trips.  And 
this  would  verify  the  traditions  which  have  survived  among  the 
farmers  at  New  Galena  in  Bucks  county  and  on  the  Susquehanna" 

3  At  "Hartyaken"  on  the  North  Branch  of  the  Neshaminy  creek, 
west  of  Fountainville,  in  Bucks  county,  Pa.,  and  on  the  North  Branch 
of  the  Susquehanna  river  near  Hummel's  wharf,  Snyder  county,  Pa., 
and  at  Little  Wapwalopen,  Luzerne  county.  Pa.,  as  noted  by  the  writer 
in  Vol.  XL  p.  123  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  papers.  In  a  maga- 
zine "Now  and  Then,"  1890,  published  at  Muncy,  Pa.,  page  186,  found 
for  the  writer  by  Mr.  Horace  M.  Mann,  one  of  these  stories  surviving  on 
the  West  Branch  of  the  Susquehanna  near  Muncy,  is  contradicted  by  an 
aged  Indian  in  1825,  who  had  then  revisited  near  Muncy,  the  old  home 
of  his  tribe.  He  considered  that  his  ancestors  had  deceived  the  pioneers, 
by  pretending  to  discover  stores  of  lead  previously  hidden  by  them  in 
the  woods  for  that  purpose. 

LATER  NOTE  ON  THE  INDIAN  NAME  OF  HARTYAKEN.— 
The  fortunate  definite  preservation  in  1891  of  the  Indian  lead  myth  as- 
-ociated  with  the  name  "Hartyaken,"  in  our  volume  II,  to  which  I 
have  referred,  and  a  note  received  February  8,  1925,  from  Dr.  Amandus 
Johnson,  author  of  Swedish  Settlements  on  the  Delaware,  etc.,  also  the 
popular  survival  of  the  name  in  New  Britain  township,  as  applied  to 
the  upper  part  of  the  North  Branch  of  the  Neshaminy  (about  three 
miles  northeast  of  New  Galena),  as  associated  with  Indians  finding 
lead,  and  finally  the  later  discovery  and  mining  of  galena  ore  (C.  1865) 


238  AN  ANCIENT  INDIAN  TOBACCO  PIPE  FROM  BUCKS  COUNTY 

and  elsewhere  to  the  effect  that  hunting  parties  of  white  men, 
accompanied  by  Indians,  when  their  bullets  were  exhausted,  had 
their  stores  replenished  by  the  Indians  disappearing  for  a  long 
time  in  the  forest,  to  return  with  fresh  supplies  of  bullet  ma- 
terial. Several  small  lead  pigs  or  ingots,  stamped  with  the  names 
of  traders  or  companies,  have  been  found  at  Indian  village  sites 
near  the  great  lakes,  and  are  now  in  the  possession  of  museums. 


at  New  Galena,  distinguish  the  "Hartyaken"  story  as  one  of  the  most 
significant  Indian  myths  in  the  eastern  United  States.  Dr.  Johnson 
writes: 

"I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  Hardyhickon  (Hartyaken),  is  a  cor- 
ruption of  Abru-ti-mickan,  or  Arr-ti-hickan-ing,  meaning  "the  Bullet- 
Mould  Bag"  or  at  the  place  of  the  bullet-mould  bag,  i.e.,  where  the 
bullet-mould  was  hidden  or  kept.  A  cognate  in  another  dialect  for 
bullet-mould,  is  alluns-hicken  (arruns-hickan) ;  allunsi-nuti  (arrunsi- 
nuti),  shot  bag,  bullet  bag.  Brinton  Dictionary-  18.  The  name  was 
perhaps  also  applied  to  the  "little  rivulet"  i.e.,  the  first  to  enter  the 
North  Branch  (right  bank)  about  one  mile  west  of  the  turnpike  above 
Fountainville,  by  the  Indians,  later  transferred  to  the  North  Branch  of 
the  Neshamuny  creek,  in  which  case  Hardyhickon  may  be  a  corruption 
of  Arr-ti-hick-anne,  or  Ar-t-ick-anne." 


The  Divining  Rod  in  Bucks  County. 

BY   HORACE    M.    MANN,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Buckingham  Friends  Meeting-  House,  June  12,  1920.) 

THE  use  of  forked  twig,  or  so-called  divining  rod,  in  lo- 
cating water  or  minerals,  finding  hidden  treasure,  or  de- 
tecting criminals  is  a  curious  superstition  that  has  been  a 
subject  of  discussion  since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century 
and  still  has  a  strong  hold  on  the  popular  mind  both  in  Europe 
and  America.  It  is  not  my  intention  in  this  paper  to  enter  into 
a  controversy  as  to  the  merits  of  the  divining  rod  or  to  add  to 
the  bulk  of  material  on  this  subject  by  an  exhaustive  history  of 
this  practice  in  general.  But  the  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  give 
as  far  as  possible  a  brief  history  of  this  operation  in  Bucks  county. 
The  origin  of  the  divining  rod  is  lost  in  antiquity.  Innumerable 
references  may  be  found  in  both  ancient  and  modern  literature, 
and  though  it  is  certain  that  rods  or  wands  of  some  kind  were  in 
use  among  ancient  peoples  for  forecasting  events,  finding  lost 
objects,  and  in  occult  practices  generally,  little  is  known  of  the 
manner  in  which  such  rods  were  used  or  what  relation,  if  any, 
they  may  have  to  the  modern  device.  The  "rod"  is  mentioned 
many  times  in  the  Bible  in  connection  with  miraculous  perform- 
ances, especially  in  the  books  of  Moses.  The  much  quoted 
passage  describing  the  "smiting  of  the  rock"  (Numbers  XX, 
9-11)  has  been  regarded  by  enthusiasts  of  water  witching  as  a 
significant  reference  to  the  divining  rod.  Dr.  Rossiter  W.  Ray- 
mond prepared  an  exhaustive  essay  on  the  subject  of  the  divining 
rod  in  which  he  quotes  numerous  authorities  proving  the  di- 
vining rod  was  primarily  used  to  detect  guilt,  decide  future 
events,  advise  course  of  action,  etc.,  although  he  also  found  in- 
stances of  its  use  for  locating  metals,  water,  etc.  What  is  be- 
lieved to  be  the  first  published  description  of  the  rod  is  contained 
in  De  Re  Metallica  by  Georgius  Agricola,  translated  from  the 
Latin  edition  of  1665  by  H.  C.  Hoover.^  The  Village  Record 
of  West  Chester,  Vol.  VII,  No.  52,   for  July  21,   1824,  makes 

1   Published  for  the  Mining  Magazine   Salisbury   House,   London,    1912,    see 
pp.  38-40. 


240  THE    DIVINING    ROD    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

reference  to  an  item  on  the  divining  rod  as  early  as  1695." 
I  am  indebted,  for  the  preceeding  brief  outHne  of  the  divining 
rod  to  the  following  publications,  The  Divining  Rod,  a  History 
of  Witching  Water,  by  Arthur  J.  Ellis,  Washington,  D.  C,  1917, 
Water  Supply  Paper  No.  416,  United  States  Geological  Survey, 
also  to  "The  Divining  Rod,"  a  paper  read  by  Dr.  Rossiter  W. 
Raymond  before  the  American  Institute  of  Mining  Engineers, 
February  1883.^ 

In  its  most  familiar  form  the  divining  rod  is  a  forked  twig, 
one  fork  of  which  is  usually  held  in  each  hand  in  such  manner 
that  the  butt  end  of  the  twig  normally  points  upward.  The  sup- 
position is,  that  when  carried  to  a  place  beneath  which  water  or 
minerals  lie,  the  butt  end  will  be  detracted  downward,  or  will 
whirl  round  and  round.  There  are  many  modifications  in  both 
form  and  manipulation  of  the  rod  but  the  diviners  I  know  all 
use  the  rod  in  practically  the  same  manner.  An  apple  twig  ap- 
pears to  be  the  favorite  in  Bucks  county,  but  cherry,  plum  and 
witch  hazel  were  also  used.  I  have  been  gathering  notes  for 
sometime  past  from  persons  using  the  divining  rod  together  with 
their  method  of  procedure,  material  used,  and  their  success  or 
non-success.  I  never  found  anyone  in  Bucks  county  using  the 
forked  stick  for  any  other  pui-pose  than  the  locating  of  water  for 
wells.  Almost  every  one  that  has  ever  tried  locating  water  by 
this  method  is  a  firm  believer  in  its  efficiency.  On  the  other  hand 
nearly  every  one  that  has  seen  it  done  but  never  actually  at- 
tempted the  feat  is  skeptical.  No  one  using  the  rod  appears  to 
have  an  adequate  explanation  of  why  the  forked  stick  should 
droop  or  turn  downward  toward  the  earth  on  approaching  a  spot 
where  water  was  nearest  the  surface.  Several  have  observed 
the  fact  that  the  stick  would  bend  in  one  persons  hands  at  a 
certain  spot  but  would  refuse  to  move  if  carried  over  the  same 
place  by  another  person. 

The  Nezv  York  Times  has  a  letter  from  a  Mr.  A.  J.  Smart  of 
Freeport,  N.  Y.,  under  date  of  November  26,  1901.  in  which  he 
says : 

2  "Extracts  from  the  old  records,"  10  mo.  1795,  Robert  Roman  presented 
for  practicing  geomanty,  and  divining  by  a  stick.  Grand  Jury  also  presented 
the  following  books,  viz :  Scott's  Discovery  of  Witchcraft,  and  Cornelius 
Agrippa's  Teaching  Negromancy.  The  court  orders  that  as  many  of  sai4 
books  can  be  found  be  produced  at  next  court. 

3  Transactions  of  the  American  Institute  of  Mining  Engineers,  Vol.  XI, 
pp.   411  to  446. 


THE    DIVINING    ROD    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  241 

"In  the  year  1866,  I  was  residing  in  the  city  of  Troy,  N.  Y.  My  house 
was  located  on  the  hill  east  of  the  southern  part  of  the  city  at  an  eleva- 
tion of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  level  of  the  river. 
This  hill  was  composed  of  fine  sand  for  a  depth  of  eighty  feet  when 
bed  rock  was  reached.  When  I  bought  the  property  I  did  not  have 
a  well  dug,  for  I  was  told  that  watercould  not  be  found  without  going 
down  to  a  great  depth  and  into  the  rock.  William,  one  of  the  foremen 
at  my  factory,  who  I  knew  to  be  honest  and  conscientious,  offered  to 
find  water  for  me  by  'water  witching'.  Without  any  faith  I  neverthe- 
less permitted  him  to  try  the  experiment  in  my  presence.  As  he  ap- 
proached a  spot  under  a  certain  pear  tree  the  twig  bent  down,  and  it 
would  not  bend  at  any  other  place  in  a  garden  of  about  two  acres.  I 
watched  the  man  very  closely,  and  was  satisfied  that  if  he  bent  the 
twig  it  was  done  unconsciously.  I  tried  it  but  there  was  no  action  at 
all.  My  son  tried  it  with  the  same  result,  but  a  daughter,  seven  years 
old,  took  the  twig  and  as  she  approached  the  marked  spot  the  twig 
began  to  bend,  and  as  she  passed  over  the  spot  she  gave  a  little  scream 
and  dropped  the  twig  within  six  inches  of  the  place  marked  by  William. 
She  said  it  felt  as  if  she  had  hold  of  the  poles  of  an  electric  battery. 
This  satisfied  me  that  there  was  no  deception  being  practiced;  that  there 
was  a  mysterious  force  here  that  would  develop  only  under  favorable 
conditions.  I  had  a  well  digger  come  and  water  was  found  at  a  depth 
of  seventeen  feet.  Eleven  years  after  this  experiment  the  same  man, 
William,  located  water  on  a  farm  I  owned  ten  miles  southeast  of  Troy, 
in  the  town  of  Sand  Lake,  N.  Y.,  by  the  same  process — a  witch  hazei 
forked  twig — and  I  found  water  within  twenty  feet,  though  the  last 
ten  feet  was  blasted  in  rock.  I  write  this,  giving  you  facts.  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  explain  the  cause  of  this  phenomenon  but  to  show  you  how 
careful  we  should  be  in  calling  a  thing  a  myth  because  we  do  not  under- 
stand it." 

The  same  paper  has  a  letter  from  J.  Brinton  White  of  New  York, 
November  26,  1901:  "A  number  of  years  ago  in  Lancaster  county, 
Penna.,  desiring  to  have  a  well  dug,  I  was  asked  by  a  man,  who  claimed 
to  have  the  power,  to  let  him  locate  the  well  for  me  by  the  use  of  the 
divining  rod.  I  consented  and  watched  the  man  very  closely.  I  noticed 
that  the  rod  was  attracted  strongly  to  the  earth  whenever  the  man 
passed  over  a  certain  point.  After  watching  for  some  time,  I  noticed 
that,  while  the  rod  did  deflect  strongly  to  the  earth,  it  did  so  by  going 
the  longer  distance  instead  of  by  the  shorter,  that  is,  it  went  three- 
quarters  of  a  circle  backward  instead  of  one-quarter  of  a  circle  down- 
ward toward  the  earth.  I  took  the  rod  and  found  this  was  easily  ac- 
complished by  pulling  the  prongs  of  the  fork  apart  not  much  more  than 
the  eighth  of  an  inch,  the  rod  would  make  the  three-quarters  revolution 
and  point  to  the  earth,  while  by  pressing  the  prongs  together  the  rod 
would  rise  and  resume  its  former  position.  After  closely  questioning 
the  man  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  whether  he  was  a  dupe  to  his 


242  -THE    DIVINING    ROD    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

own  action  or  not.  It  seemed  to  me  possible  that  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  from  the  lay  of  the  land  that  a  certain  spot  would  be  a  good  place 
to  find  water,  and  then  he  unconsciously  made  the  rod  so  point." 

George  Smith,  Doylestown,  has  never  failed  to  find  water  at 
places  marked  by  him  with  the  use  of  the  divining  rod.  He 
always  used  apple  wood  of  no  particular  growth  so  long  as  it 
was  strong  enough  not  to  split  at  the  fork.  He  never  claimed 
any  special  dispensation  of  providence  or  other  unusual  powers 
and  in  fact  regards  his  ability  in  this  line  as  an  unexplainable 
force  of  nature  but  perfectly  natural  without  any  idea  of  quack- 
ery or  fraud.  However,  he  found,  as  others  did,  that  while  the 
rods  worked  for  him  they  would  not  perform  for  others.  His 
brother,  John,  was  never  able  to  accomplish  any  results  with  the 
forked  sticks.  Mr.  Smith  learned  this  art  from  Enos  Geil. 
Henry  Earner,  Doylestown,  desiring  a  well  dug  asked  Mr.  Smith 
to  locate  water  for  him  with  his  divining  ord.  When  Mr.  Smith 
selected  a  certain  spot  as  likely  to  produce  the  best  results  Mr. 
Earner  laughed  and  within  an  inch  of  where  Mr.  Smith  had  in- 
dicated pulled  out  an  iron  pin  and  told  Mr.  Smith  that  there 
was  the  place  Enos  Geil  had  located  for  water  a  short  time  be- 
fore. At  the  first  pottery  of  Dr.  Mercer's  above  Doylestown, 
Mr.  Smith  found  water  by  means  of  the  rod  and  later  indicated 
the  greatest  depth  they  would  have  to  go  for  it.  When  the  well 
was  dug  water  was  found  five  feet  nearer  the  surface  than  in- 
dicated. Dr.  Mercer  and  John  Rufe  of  Doylestown,  were  with 
Mr.  Smith  at  this  time.  Franz  Nace  at  Dublin,  dug  a  well 
found  with  the  divining  rod  by  Mr.  Smith  and  water  came  in  so 
strong  at  eighteen  feet  that  the  workmen  were  unable  to  get  out 
the  large  stones  loosened  by  the  blast.  Also  at  the  farm  of 
Anthony  Grass,  Nace's  Corner,  water  was  easily  found  and  the 
depth  indicated  by  Mr.  Smith  by  this  method.  Mr.  Smith  tells 
me  that  the  use  of  the  divining  rod  made  him  nervous  at  the 
time  and  the  efifect  did  not  wear  oflf  for  several  days.  When  water 
was  located  he  could  tell  by  a  trill  running  through  him  as  well 
as  by  the  movement  of  the  sticks.  He  held  the  rod  with  the 
point  of  the  fork  away  from  him  and  the  rod  turned  backward 
toward  him  by  the  longest  segment  of  the  circle  instead  of  turn- 
ing directly  downward  to  the  earth.  He  regards  his  ability  to 
determine  the  depth  of  the  water  as  greater  than  his  ability  to 


THE    DIVINING    ROD    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  243 

merely  locate  it.  This  is  a  trade  secret  he  does  not  care  to  reveal 
except  that  the  stronger  the  twist  there  will  more  water  be  found. 
Frozen  ground  does  not  interfere  at  all  in  locating  the  water.  At 
the  farm  of  Grass'  mentioned  above,  the  well  was  dug  in  the 
middle  of  winter  when  the  ground  was  so  hard  it  had  to  be 
blasted  the  same  as  ro.ck. 

Mathias  H.  Hall  writes  in  the  following  letter  to  me  of  De- 
cember 15,  1919: 

"These  water-smellers  as  they  used  to  be  called  when  I  was  a  boy 
used  an  apple  stick  of  two  years  growth.  About  the  year  1851  my 
father,  who  lived  midway  between  Doylestown  and  Bushington,  now 
Furlong,  wanted  to  dig  a  well  and  got  one  of  those  professional  men. 
After  digging  twenty-seven  feet  he  came  to  water  and  it  is  probable 
that  he  could  have  reached  water  anywhere  on  the  farm  at  that  depth. 
John  Flack  the  same  year  wished  to  dig  a  well.  He  too  got  one  of  the 
professionals  to  tell  him  where  to  dig  who  picked  out  a  place  about 
fifty  feet  from  the  spot  where  Flack  wanted  to  dig  his  well.  After 
digging  thirty  feet  or  more  and  not  coming  to  water  he  quit  digging  and 
then  went  to  dig  where  he  wanted  to  have  the  well  and  got  plenty  of 
water  several  feet  nearer  the  surface.  Some  of  these  professionals 
claimed  to  know  how  deep  they  would  have  to  dig  to  reach  water. 
George  Geil  wishing  to  dig  a  well  also  got  one  of  these  professionals 
who  told  him  where  to  dig  and  how  deep  to  go  to  get  water.  He 
missed  the  guess  by  about  five  feet.  There  was  a  spring  of  water  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  from  where  he  dug  the  well  and  almost  any- 
one could  have  made  as  good  a  guess.  These  professionals  as  far  as  I 
know  were  all  German  Mennonites  who  had  their  influence  on  their 
Quaker  and  Scotch-Irish  neighbors." 

Dr.  J.  T.  Rothrock,  of  West  Chester,  informed  me  on  August 
29,  1919,  that  he  had  often  seen  the  divining  rod  used  for  finding 
water  and  that  they  were  always  successful,  but  he  thought  that 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  all  he  had  observed  use  it  were  ex- 
perienced men  that  might  allow  themselves  to  be  influenced  large- 
ly by  their  judgment  of  where  water  was  likely  to  be  found.  He 
saw  rods  of  apple,  witch  hazel,  cherry  and  plum,  used.  He  never 
saw  it  used  for  locating  minerals  or  metals. 

John  J,  Rufe,  a  plumber  of  Doylestown,  has  often  seen  the 
divining  rod  tried  and  thinks  the  operation  is  governed  more  by 
his  knowledge  and  judgment  than  by  any  operation  of  nature. 
He  watched  John  Trainer,  of  Doylestown,  attempt  to  locate 
water  at  the  Fordhook  farms.     Trainer  indicated  the  spot  where 


244  THE    DIVINING    ROD    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

water  would  be  reached  at  twenty-five  feet  below  the  surface, 
but  after  digging  fifty  feet  no  water  appeared. 

George  Long,  brickmaker  of  Doylestown,  has  observed  many 
attempts  to  locate  water  by  means  of  the  rod  on  a  lot  owned  by 
his  mother  in  Lansdale,  a  well  was  sunk  fifty  feet  deep  without 
results,  while  on  an  adjoining  lot  owned  by  Mr.  Holt,  he  (Long) 
located  water  with  the  divining  rod  at  a  depth  of  fifteen  feet. 
Neighbors  scoffed  at  his  attempts  pointing  out  his  failure  to  find 
water  on  similar  land  only  one  hundred  feet  distant.  Mr.  Long 
always  used  a  forked  apple  branch  and  never  saw  or  heard  of 
any  one  useing  the  divining  rod  for  locating  minerals  or  treasure. 

Samuel  Hand,  of  Doylestown,  stage-driver  between  Doyles- 
town and  Ambler,  has  seen  water  found  by  means  of  an  apple 
rod.  He  never  tried  it  himself  but  believes  that  there  is  some  un- 
known force  of  nature  operating,*because  of  the  several  times  he 
saw  it  tried  with  successful  results. 

John  Harvey,  janitor  of  the  museum,  has  often  used  cherry  or 
plum  branches,  and  always  found  water.  He  held  the  rod  with 
the  point  of  the  fork  toward  him  and  it  would  always  turn  di- 
rectly by  the  shortest  arc  of  the  circle  to  the  ground.  Mrs. 
Harvey  also  tried  the  operation  and  at  a  spot  located  by  her  hus- 
band, the  pull  was  so  great  she  was  unable  to  prevent  it  from 
turning  toward  the  earth. 

In  this  paper  I  have  not  attempted  to  prepare  a  brief  for  or 
against  the  divining  rod.  I  have  simply  presented  the  local  in- 
formation as  secured,  and  leave  you  to  form  your  own  opinion 
from  this  or  from  personal  observation,  as  to  whether  the  finding 
of  water  underground  by  means  of  a  forked  apple,  cherry  or 
plum  stick  is  the  result  of  a  hidden  force  of  nature,  or  a  myth 
and  superstition. 


Wafer  Irons 

BY  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Friends   Meeting  House,   Buckingham,   June    12,    1920.) 

YOUR   attention   is   called   to   these    ancient    baking   instru- 
ments,  consisting   of    two    iron   baking-plates    set    on    long 
handles   hinged   together   like    blacksmith   pincers   close   to 
the  plates,  so  as  to  press  the  latter  together  face  to  face  during 
the  baking  process. 

They  look  like,  but  are  not.  waffle-irons,  because  while  the 
latter  show  rims  on  the  baking-plates,  for  containing  the  baking 
material   (batter),  and  bake  a  waffle  or  spongy  cake  about  one- 


WAFER   IRONS    IN  THE  MUSEUM   OF   THE   BUCKS   COUNTY 
HISTORICAL  SOCIETY. 

third  of  an  inch  thick,  these  plates  are  rimless,  and  the  product 
is  a  thin  dry  cake  or  wafer  sometimes  not  thicker  than  a  piece 
of  blotting  paper. 

We  have  in  the  museum,  as  here  illustrated,  six  of  these  wafer- 
irons,  collected  in  recent  years  from  eastern  Pennsylvania  and 
New  Jersey.     Mrs.  Frismuth  has  presented  several  to  the  Penn- 


246  WAFER   IRONS 

sylvania  Museum  at  Fairmont  Park,  and  others  are  in  private 
hands,  but  their  identity  and  use  have  been  so  generally  forgotten, 
that  they  have  been  sometimes  mistaken  by  dealers  and  owners 
for  waffle-irons  and  tanners'  stamps  for  marking  hides. 

They  vary  in  length  from  26  inches  to  35  inches,  and  the  tapered 
handles  from  20^^  inches  to  29^/^  inches  long,  are  always  of 
wrought  iron.  Sometimes  one  of  them  ends  in  a  loose  ring 
hooked  over  its  fellow  which  locks  the  apparatus  and  presses  the 
plates  during  the  baking.  The  rimless  baking-plates  about  4^ 
to  7  inches  in  diameter,  are  sometimes  round  or  oval  and  some- 
times rectangular,  sometimes  thin  (^^  inches),  sometimes  thick 
(y%  inches)  for  retaining  heat.  They  are  sometimes  forged  or 
hammered  out  of  the  same  piece  of  iron  as  the  handles,  and 
sometimes  cast,  when  the  wrought-iron  handles  are  fastened  upon 
them  by  screws  or  rivets,  which  latter  sometimes  do  and  some- 
times do  not  penetrate  the  plate.  The  hinge  is  close  to  the  bake- 
plates,  and  as  in  pincers  or  tweezers  turns  on  a  rivet. 

Whether  cast  upon  them  at  the  furnace,  or  carefully  engraved 
on  the  cold  metal,  or  stamped  in  the  red  hot  iron  by  black- 
smiths with  punches  and  chisels,  the  face  of  the  plates,  not  clearly 
seen  in  the  picture,  invariably  shows  designs  representing  tulips, 
stars,  zig-zags,  fleurs-de-lis,  hearts,  symbols,  ecclesiastical  designs, 
crosses,  monograms,  dates,  or  inscriptions  set  in  more  or  less 
ornate  borders,  and  intended  to  impress  a  pattern  upon  the  baked 
product.  Some  of  these  decorations  are  very  rude.  Some  show 
the  letters  upside  down  or  their  numbers  wrongly  reversed  so  as 
to  stamp  the  name  or  sentence  backwards.  Some  do  and  some  do 
not  attempt  to  reproduce  the  design  on  both  plates. 

These  notes  would  not  be  novel  or  necessary  if  the  diction- 
aries or  encyclopedias,  for  instance  the  exhaustive  E.  H.  Knights' 
American  Mechanical  Dictionary,  with  its  5,000  engravings,  or 
Reese's  Great  Encyclopedia  of  about  1815,  Charles  Knights' 
English  Encyclopedia  of  1886,  or  Chambers  Encyclopaedia,  Myers 
German  Conversations  Lexicon,  or  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
(ninth  edition),  explained  their  construction.  Where  books  refer 
to  the  uses  and  history  of  certain  kinds  of  wafer-irons,  they  fail 
to  describe  the  instrument  itself,  or  the  baking  process,  and  it  is 
not  easy  to  learn  that  the  domestic  class  of  these  irons  here 
shown,  was  probably  in  rather  sparse  use  by  wealthy  families 
and  in  cities,  and  not  commonly  employed,  in  post-colonial  times. 


WAFER    IRONS  247 

Further  than  this,  it  appears  that  domestic  wafer-irons  have 
survived  until  the  present  year,  and  I  was  surprised  to  learn  that 
my  aunt,  Miss  Fanny  Chapman,  had  a  pair  and  still,  1920,  baked 
wafers  in  them.  She  inherited  them  from  her  great-grandmother, 
who  was  the  wife  of  Governor  Findlay,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  mar- 
ried in  1791.  Therefore  they  must  have  been  first  used  about 
1795,  or  earlier.  Governor  Findlay's  daughter,  who  became  the 
wife  of  Governor  Shunk,  made  wafers  in  them  at  Harrisburg  in 
the  1850's,  at  Christmas  time,  and  frequently,  as  my  aunt  tells 
me,  sent  boxes  of  wafers  to  her  daughter,  my  grandmother,  Mrs. 
Henry  Chapman,  then  living  in  Doylestown  (to  please  the  chil- 
dren, of  whom  I  was  one).  These  were  made  according  to  her 
inherited   (great-grandmother's)   receipt,  as  follows: 

"K'  lb.  Butter 
1  lb.  Brown  sugar 
6  Eggs 

4  teaspoonfuls  rose  water 
Cinnamon  to  taste. 
Make  a  very  thick  batter,  beat  it  very  light.      Beat  eggs  with  sugar 
and  add  them  with  the  other  ingredients.     Grease  the  iron  with  melted 
butter  and  a  feather. — " 

After  her  mother's  death  my  aunt  continued  to  make  these 
cakes,  as  features  of  a  dessert,  rolled  up  rather  than  flat,  so  as 
to  enclose  whipped  cream,  etc.,  I  must  have  frequently  eaten 
them  in  my  youth  and  recently,  without  distinctly  remembering 
the  fact,  or  knowing  how  they  were  baked. 

In  this  instance  Miss  Chapman's  round  bake-plates  are  made 
of  cast,  not  wrought  iron,  are  decorated  with  fieurs-de-lis,  and 
the  wrought  handles  attached  to  the  plates  with  rivets  which  do 
not  penetrate  the  latter,  show  the  ring  clamp. 

My  aunt's  present  cook,  Katrina  Dinkelacher,  this  week,  June, 
1920,  baked  the  wafers  here  shown  in  these  irons  in  about  three 
minutes  according  to  her  own  receipt,  brought  from  Bavaria, 
twenty-six  years  ago,  as  follows : 

"Stir  together    Yi  lb.  powdered   sugar, 
14  lb.  butter,  then  add 
6  well  beaten  eggs 
1   teaspoonful   ground   cinnamon 
54  teaspoonful  grated   nutmeg 
^  teaspoonful  rose  water 
Yz  teaspoonful  grated  lemon  rind 


248  WAFER  IRONS 

Enough  flour  to  make  a  thin  batter  of  the  right  consistency  to  spread 
with  a  knife  on  the  baking  iron,  which  is  previously  heated  on  the  top 
of  the  range.  Bake  to  a  golden  brown  and  roll  at  once.  If  any  batter 
spreads  outside  of  the  iron  trim  it  oflf  with  a  knife.  Enough  to  make 
thirty-two  cakes." 

Katrina  says  that  she  has  made  similar  wafers  on  similar 
irons  for  a  private  family  near  Stuttgart  about  1825. 

To  further  show  that  wafers  of  this  sort  have  been  and  con- 
tinue to  be  made  in  private  families,  on  Christmas,  at  weddings, 
holidays,  etc.,  and  as  a  feature  of  desserts  in  general,  I  was  not 
surprised  to  learn  that  my  Philadelphia  cook  book,  of  date  about 
1890,  gives  a  receipt  for  making  the  batter  for  lemon  wafers,  as 
does  also  the  Royal  Cookery  Book,  by  Jules  Gouffe,  London, 
Samson  &  Low,  1868,  the  latter  adding  that  the  wafers  can  be 
made  not  only  thus  with  fluid  batter,  but  also  with  stiffened 
dough,  rolled  into  balls  and  squeezed  flat  between  the  plates, 
and  then  trimmed  off  if  any  dough  protrudes  beyond  the  rims, 
while  the  former  books  says,  that  lacking  the  wafer-irons,  you  can 
bake  the  wafers  on  sheets  of  paper  laid  in  a  pan  in  the  oven. 
Both  books  refer  to,  but  do  not  describe  the  irons  used. 

At  this  point  of  my  investigation,  I  telephoned  to  J.  F.  Miller's 
household  supply  store,  1612  Chestnut  street,  Philadelphia,  and 
he  informed  me  that  he  rarely  sold  wafer-irons  to  private  per- 
sons, but  could  still  furnish  me  with  a  pair,  which  he  did, 
and  these  I  now  show  with  cast  iron  plates,  decorated  with  cast 
floral  designs  and  equipped  with  a  ring  clamp,  but  made  in  a 
factory  and  not  by  hand,  as  the  last  of  the  domestic  series. 

A  few  days  later,  I  learned  from  a  former  neighbor,  Mrs. 
Schroth,  then  by  chance  visiting  me,  that  all  Catholic  churches 
were  still  continually  making  wafers  in  similar  irons  for  the  host 
bread  used  in  the  communion  ceremony  and  mass. 

I  visited  the  Sisters  at  St.  Mary's  Catholic  church  in  Doyles- 
town,  who  showed  me  the  wafer-irons  used  at  the  Doylestown 
church,  probably  since  its  foundation  in  1850.  As  here  shown 
in  the  illustration,  these  irons,  constructed  like  all  the  others,  are 
26^^^  inches  long,  and  show  heavy  oblong  cast  iron  or  steel  bake- 
plates  ^  inches  thick  and  6%  inches  in  longest  diameter,  only 
one  of  which  is  stamped,  or  probably  engraved,  with  two  crosses 
upon  a  grassy  hill,  between  two  thorn  bushes,  and  surrounded 
with  a  double  rimmed  border  enclosing  twelve  little  stars,  and 


WAFER  IRONS  249 

two  small  singly  rimmed  circles  containing  small  crosses  com- 
posed of  dots.  The  wrought  iron  handles,  equipped  with  a  ring 
lock  as  usual,  are  fastened  upon  the  plate  by  round  headed 
screws,  which  do  not  penetrate  the  latter. 

The  sisters  informed  me  that  they  baked  the  communion 
wafers  or  host-bread  in  about  one  minute,  upon  these  irons,  with 
a  thin  batter  composed  of  selected  very  white  wheat  flour  and 
water,  poured  on  the  plates,  previously  heated  over  the  oil  stove, 
and  waxed  with  bees  wax  from  the  altar  tapers,  after  which  the 
ragged  borders  on  the  cakes  were  pared  off  if  necessary  with  a 
knife  or,  if  kept  whole,  trimmed  with  scissors.  After  baking, 
the  four  circular  patterns  adorned  with  the  large  and  small 
crosses,  were  stamped  out  with  sharpened  circlets  of  steel  mounted 
on  handles.  They  further  said  that  when  the  wafer-irons  were 
not  at  hand,  in  an  emergency,  wafers,  minus  the  design,  could 
be,  and  were  sometimes  baked  on  smoothing-irons.  Also, 
that  the  church  never  permitted  the  baking  of  these  wafers  by 
public  bakers,  but  always  now  required  it  of  sisters  representing 
various  religious  orders  associated  with  the  various  churches, 
lacking  whom,  a  church  had  the  work  done  by  sisters  commis- 
sioned from  a  distance. 

But  they  also  said  that  the  modern  church  supply  houses  still 
sold  the  wafer-irons  to  churches  in  their  original  form,  although 
they  had  recently  made  and  now  supply  stoves  and  stamps  worked 
by  gas,  oil  and  electricity,  which  would  produce  sometimes  four 
thousand  wafers  in  an  hour. 

Besides  this  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia  tells  us  in  an  article  by 
Father  Shulte,  after  noting  the  existence  of  very  old  specimens  of 
ecclesiastical  wafer-irons  in  France,  that  for  a  long  time  the  old- 
est specimens,  there  preserved  in  museums  and  private  collec- 
tions, had  been  dated  in  the  twelfth  century,  until  recently,  when 
a  still  older  pair  of  irons  had  been  found  at  Carthage  ascribed 
to  the  sixth  or  seventh  century. 

I  further  learned  that  St.  John's  Catholic  church  at  Haycock 
Run,  founded  in  the  eighteenth  century,  had  inherited  a  very 
old  pair  of  these  irons,  no  longer  used  there.  Father  Andre 
has  kindly  presented  them  to  our  society. 

After  the  Reformation  the  Protestant  churches  generally 
abandoned  the  use  of  wafers,  but  Luther  retained  them,  and  the 


250  WAFER  IRONS 

Lutherans  continued  to  use  them  until  late  in  the  nineteeenth 
century,  so  that  some  of  the  old  Lutheran  churches  may  still 
have  a  pair  of  these  now  disused  wafer-irons  in  their  possession, 
preserved  as  heirlooms. 

There  are  or  have  been  other  wafers  made  for  various  pur- 
poses, and  these,  as  finished  products  therefore,  might  be  classed, 
as  far  as  our  present  knowledge  goes,  as  follows : 

L  The  ecclesiastical  wafer  as  described. 

2.  The  domestic  wafer  as  described. 

3.  The  documentary  wafer,  in  which  a  thin  round  cake,  large 
or  small,  is  mixed  with  glue,  and  has  been  used  until  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  at  least,  for  sealing  letters,  fixing  seals 
to  papers,  stamps  upon  deeds,  etc. 

4.  The  medicinal  wafer,  in  which  small  concave  tablets,  rimmed 
with  glue,  may  enclose  a  nauseus  dose  of  medicine,  used  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  possibly  still  used  by  old  fashioned 
druggists. 

5.  The  fish-wafer,  a  thin  tablet  thus  baked  broken  or  cut,  to 
feed  gold  fish,  as  now  sold  by  apothecaries. 

6.  The  confectioner's  wafer,  as  now  sold,  placed  under  baked 
cakes,  or  used  as  a  dessert  with  tea  or  coffee  or  to  enclose  ice 
cream. 

Oil,  gas  and  electric  stoves  and  stamps  advertised  in  a 
leaflet  from  the  Chicago  Catholic  Supply  House,  here  shown,  now 
used  to  hasten  the  baking  and  stamping  of  wafers,  are  supplant- 
ing the  ancient  hand  irons  here  described,  but  the  process,  name- 
ly the  baking  of  very  thin  cakes,  between  two  tightly  pressed  hot 
iron  plates,  remains  the  same. 


HEXAGONAL    SCHOOLHOUSE,    LOWER    SAUCON    TOWNSHIP, 
NORTHAMPTON  COUNTY,   PA. 


Erected   in   1833,   abandoned   for   school   purposes   in    1886.      It   was   tlien   con- 
verted   into    a    dwelling    liouse,    and    the    dormer    windows    added. 
Later,   for   a   few   years   before   it   was   demolislied,    it   was 
used    as    a    cliicken    house.      From    photograph 
taken  in  18  92  by  Miss  Laura  M.   Riegel 
(now  Mrs.  Chester  P.  Cook). 


Octagonal  or  So-called  "Eight  Square"  Schoolhouses. 

BY  ALDEN    M.   COLLINS,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Friends   Meeting  House,   Buckingliam,   June    12,    1920.) 

"Then  come  along,  come  along,  make  no  delay; 

Come  from  every  dwelling,  come  from  every  way, 
Come  from  where  the  mighty  waters  of  the  broad  St.  Lawrence  flow, 

Come  from  Florida  and  Kansas,  come  from  Maine  and  Mexico; 
Bring  your  slates  and  books  along,  and  don't  be  a  fool 

For  Uncle  Sam  is  rich  enough  to  send  us  all  to  school." 

AS  the  peculiar  style  of  schoolhouses  known  as  "Eight- 
Square",  are  no  longer  used  for  school  purposes,  and  the 
old  ruins  fast  going  into  decay,  it  seems  worth  while  to 
record  the  little  information  that  can  be  gathered  concerning  them. 

With  the  greatly  appreciated  assistance  of  many  persons  inter- 
ested in  preserving  some  history  of  the  methods  by  which  our 
forebears  were  educated  in  rural  districts,  several  accounts  have 
been  secured ;  and  while  these  recollections  by  no  means  tell  a 
complete  story,  we  are  reminded  of  our  early  days  at  school,  and 
compare  them  with  the  developed  schoolhouses  and  methods  to 
be  found  at  the  present  time  in  any  prosperous  community. 

In  the  November  1907  issue  of  the  Pennsylvania  German 
(Vol.  VIII,  p.  517)  Prof.  E.  M.  Rapp  of  Hamburg,  Pa.,  de- 
scribes the  Eight  Cornered  School-building  at  Sinking  Spring 
as  follows : 

"At  the  eastern  end  of  the  village  of  Sinking  Spring  in  Berks  county, 
near  the  Harrisburg  pike  and  near  a  recently  abandoned  toll-gate, 
stands  an  eight-cornered  building  that  almost  invariably  attracts  the 
eyes  of  passers-by,  especially  of  strangers  on  trains  and  trolleys.  This 
octagonal  building  was  formerly  used  as  a  schoolhouse  and  was  a  type 
of  school-buildings  of  which  many  were  scattered  through  the  Middle 
Atlantic  States  over  a  century  ago.  The  constructors  no  doubt  con- 
cluded that,  if  it  was  built  octagonal,  space  would  be  economized.  It 
is  the  only  building  of  its  kind  remaining  in  the  county,  although  aban- 
doned for  school-purposes  over  fifty  years  ago.  Still  a  few  of  these 
buildings  are  used  for  school-purposes  in  the  near-by  counties  of  Bucks 
and  Montgomery.  For  the  last  half  century  the  structure  has  been 
used  as  a  dwelling.  It  is  of  stone,  very  substantial,  the  walls  being 
three  feet  in  thickness,  plastered  and  whitewashed  on  the  interior  and 
exterior.      The  outside  is  the  same  as  when  it  was  constructed,  except 


252      OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT-SOU ARe"  SCHOOLHOUSES 

for  a  porch  in  front,  an  addition  on  the  east  end  and  a  dormer-window. 
The  inside  still  retains  the  umbrella-like  rafters."     ***** 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  the  immediate  predecessor  of  the 
octagonal  schoolhouse  in  country  districts  during  Colonial  times 
was  the  log  schoolhouse  with  a  rough  puncheon  floor  or  a  dirt 
floor.  During  and  immediately  after  the  Revolutionary  War  the 
rough  log  building  was  replaced  in  the  Middle  States,  by  a  bet- 
ter schoolhouse  of  the  octagonal  shape,  so  much  in  favor  for 
meeting-houses  as  well  as  for  school  purposes.  In  Eastern  Penn- 
sylvania these  octagonal  houses  were  nearly  always  built  of 
stone,  like  the  ones  we  have  herein  described. 

In  the  same  issue  of  the  Pennsylvania-German,  to  which  I  have 
referred,  an  old  octagonal  schoolhouse  on  the  Bath  road  is  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  John  R.  Laubach  of  Nazareth,  Pa.,  as  follows: 

"Es  alt  achteckig  Schulhaus  an  der  Bather  Schtross,  was  a  unique 
and  interesting  building  of  Pennsylvania-Germandom.  It  is  so-called 
on  account  of  its  peculiar  construction,  being  octagonal  in  form,  the 
only  one  of  its  kind,  according  to  my  knowledge  in  this  section  of  the 
country.  It  stood  along-side  of  the  highway  from  Easton  to  Mauch 
Chunk,  in  Upper  Nazareth  township,  Northampton  county.  Pa.,  about 
a  mile  west  of  the  village  of  Smoketown  and  two  miles  southeast  of 
Bath,  near  the  east  branch  of  the  Monocacy  creek.  It  was  built  in 
1828  by  means  of  contributions  from  the  surrounding  community,  and 
for  more  than  fifty  years  it  stood  as  a  landmark  known  far  and  wide. 
Its  walls  were  built  of  limestone  quarried  in  the  vicinity;  the  mason- 
work  was  done  by  Daniel  Michael,  who  for  many  years  lived  on  the 
same  road  opposite  the  schoolhouse.  Its  w-alls  were  eighteen  inches 
thick,  solidly  built,  neatly  plastered  and  w-hitewashed  on  the  inside  and 
rough-cast  on  the  outside.  They  could  easily  have  defied  the  storms 
of  centuries  yet  to  come  had  not  a  building  of  more  modern  construc- 
tion been  desired. 

This  old  structure  was  known  as  the  Union  Schoolhouse  and  con- 
trolled by  six  trustees,  three  from  Upper  and  three  from  Lower  Naz- 
areth township,  selected  from  its  patrons  in  the  district.  Among  the 
best  known  of  these  trustees  were  Adam  Daniel,  better  known  as 
Squire  Daniel,  from  the  fact  that  he  was  a  justice  of  the  peace  for  a 
number  of  years;  George  Hellick,  Peter  Rohn  and  others,  all  of  whom 
departed  from  the  scenes  of  this  life  many  years  ago. 

The  door  of  the  schoolhouse  was  on  the  southside.  Opposite  the 
door  on  the  north  side  was  the  teacher's  desk,  raised  on  a  small  plat- 
form. Extending  along  six  sides  of  the  room  were  two  rows  of  desks, 
one  for  the  larger  pupils,  facing  the  wall,  and  one  for  the  smaller  ones, 
facing  the  stove.  The  desks  were  of  the  simplest  construction  and 
bore  many  a  penknife-carving  made  by  the  pupils  in  days  gone  by. 
The   benches   around   the   larger   desks   were   about   two   feet   high   and 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT-SQUARe"  SCHOOLHOUSES  253 

ten  inches  wide,  standing  loose  on  the  floor;  every  now  and  then  one 
toppled  over  and  made  a  disturbance.  This  was  generally  followed  by 
a  sharp  reprimand  from  the  teacher,  and  the  one  at  fault  was  only  too 
glad  if  the  master  did  not  use  the  rod,  of  which  there  was  generally  a 
good  supply  on  hand  on  the  window  behind  the  teacher's  desk. 

I  remember,  one  Sunday  afternoon  when  we  had  singing-school, 
that  a  worthy  old  gentleman  of  the  neighborhood,  sitting  all  alone  on 
one  side  of  these  benches,  became  so  interested  in  the  singing  from 
old  Weber's  Notabuch  with  its  character  notes  that,  in  some  way  or 
other,  the  bench  dropped  out  from  under  him.  He  was  left  suspended 
without  any  support  but  the  desk  behind,  and  the  smaller  bench  before 
him,  on  which  he  had  rested  his  feet.  All  present  were  greatly  amused, 
and  amid  the  tittering  he  could  not  refrain  from  exclaiming:  "So 
veidamta  Hinkelschtanga!"     (Such  d chicken  roosts.) 

In  the  middle  of  the  room  stood  an  old  wood  stove.  This  was  later 
replaced  by  a  coal  stove.  In  the  yard  in  front  of  the  schoolhouse  was  a 
big  pile  of  wood,  and  many  a  scholar  was  only  too  glad  to  be  allowed 
to  go  out  and  saw  and  split  the  same,  rather  than  study  his  tiresome 
lessons.  In  the  frame  of  the  window  behind  the  teacher's  desk  was 
the  black-board,  about  four  feet  wide  and  five  feet  high,  which  could 
be  raised  or  lowered  as  desired,  but  little  use  could  be  made  of  it.  On 
one  side  of  the  door  was  a  place  for  the  water-bucket,  also  a  board 
which  could  be  turned  around,  having  the  words  "OUT"  and  "IN" 
cut  in  large  letters  on  the  same,  to  be  used  by  the  pupils  as  occasion 
required." 

The  plan  showing  how  these  schoolhouses  were  fitted  up  was 
secured  from  a  letter  written  to  Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal.  Jr.,  and 
is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  interior  of  these  early  seats  of 
learning  where  many  people,  both  men  and  women,  wdio  have  be- 
come widely  known  for  their  usefulness  to  their  country  and  the 
community  in  which  they  liVed,  first  learned  their  a  b  c's  and 
the  many  essentials  by  which  they  found  themselves  able  to  live 
useful  lives. 

As  the  letter  and  diagram  prepared  by  Mr.  Laubach  whose  ac- 
count of  the  Bath  road  schoolhouse  is  so  excellent,  it  seems  fitting 
they  should  be  presented  here  as  part  of  this  paper. 

Nazareth,   Pa.,  Nov.   15,   1907. 
Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr. 

Riegelsville,  Pa. 

My  dear  Doctor  Fackenthal: — 

Your  esteemed  favor  asking  about  the  old  schoolhouse  on 
the  Bath  road  is  received  and  contents  noted.  The  house  was  built  in 
the  shape  of  an  octagon,  not  hexagon.  The  following  sketch  will  show 
you  a  ground  plan  of  it,  with  position  of  windows,  door,  desks,  benches, 
stove,  teacher's  platform  and  chair,  also  the  blackboard  which  operated 


254  OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT-SQUARE''  SCHOOLHOUSES 

with  counterbalances  so  that  it  could  be  raised  or  lowered.  The  only 
other  one  like  it,  that  I  ever  saw,  was  in  Moore  township,  near  Point 
Phillips,  in  Northampton  county,  but  that  too  was  torn  down  many 
years  ago. 

•  Yours  with  esteem, 

John  R.  Laubach. 


Dr.  Fackenthal  advises  me,  that  he  very  well  remembers  an 
hexagonal  (not  octagonal)  schoolhouse,  which  stood  on  Lau- 
bach's  creek,  near  the  village  of  Lower  Saucon  in  Lower  Saucon 
township,  Northampton  county,  on  the  south  side  of  the  road 
leading  from  Hellertown  to  Durham,  about  midway  between 
Lower  Saucon  and  Old  Williams  township  churches,  having 
passed  by  it  scores  of  times  when  a  school  was  maintained  there- 
in.    Mr.  Joseph  E.  Ruch,  who  lives  quite  near  its  site,  informs 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT-SQUARe"  SCHOOLHOUSES  255 

him  that  this  six  sided  schoolhouse  was  erected  under  the  lead- 
ership of  his  grandfather,  Christian  Ruch,  in  1833,  which  was 
before  the  pubhc  school  system  of  Pennsylvania  was  begun.  Mr. 
Ruch  says  it  was  the  only  school  he  ever  attended.  The  funds 
for  it  were  gathered  in  the  neighborhood  from  the  patrons  of  the 
school.  Prior  to  its  erection  there  was  a  log  schoolhouse  to  the 
northwest  thereof.  Mr.  Howard  Mitman,  who  also  lives  in  that 
neighborhood,  informs  Dr.  Fackenthal  that  he  has  a  distinct 
recollection  of  this  schoolhouse.  He  says  it  was  six  sided,  and 
moreover  had  a  photograph  taken  after  the  dormer  windows 
were  removed,  from  which  he  had  a  half-tone  etching  made,  used 
to  illustrate  his  article  published  in  The  Northampton  Farmer, 
Vol.  H,  No.  3.  for  March  1921.  In  that  article  he  describes  the 
interior  of  the  building  as  follows : 

"The  internal  arrangement  followed  the  lines  of  the  building.  The 
stove  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  the  pipe  going  straight  up  to 
the  chimney  above.  The  entrance  door  was  in  the  middle  of  one  of 
the  sides;  directly  opposite  was  a  platform  with  the  teacher's  desk. 
Long  desks  followed  the  two  side  walls  remaining  on  each  side  of  the 
building,  wdth  backless  benches  for  the  pupils.  There  were  in  all  four 
rows  of  desks,  with  two  rows  of  recitation  benches  in  front  of  them." 

This  six  sided  schoolhouse  was  abandoned  in  1886,  when  a  new 
and  modern  building  was  erected  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
road.  An  etching  of  the  hexagonal  building,  taken  in  1892,  when 
it  was  used  as  a  dwelling  house  is  shown  herewith. 

In  Montgomery  county  there  is  an  octagonal  schoolhouse  on 
North  Lane,  about  a  mile  from  Conshohocken,  which  was  re- 
cently sold,  and  is  now  occupied  as  a  dwelling  house.  It  was 
there  that  the  late  Hon.  James  B.  Holland  received  part  of  his 
early  education. 

Another  octagonal  schoolhouse,  still  standing,  and  preserved 
as  a  relic,  is  on  the  Dunwoody  estate,  on  the  pike  leading  from 
Philadelphia  to  Newtown  Square  in  Delaware  county.  Situated 
in  a  community  where  so  many  institutions  of  learning  are  lo- 
cated, it  is  a  quaint  curiosity  and  a  reminder  of  the  past. 

The  foundation  walls  of  an  octagon  schoolhouse  in  Moreland 
township,  Montgomery  county,  near  Paper  Mills,  are  still  stand- 
ing and  being  near  the  new  schoolhouse  the  boys  find  them  of 
great  use  for  forts  when  it  snows.  The  property  is  now  (1920) 
owned  by  W.  W.  Frazier. 


256         OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT-SQUARe'''  SCHOOLHOUSES 

On  the  northern  slope  of  Great  Valley  in  Chester  county,  the 
early  settlers  built  an  eight-square  schoolhouse,  overlooking  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  farming  districts  in  the  United  States. 
After  being  used  for  a  school  for  many  years  it  was  abandoned. 
As  it  was  substantially  built  of  stones,  it  was  easily  restored  and 
is  now  in  perfect  condition  and  cared  for  by  the  owners. 

In  Bucks  county,  near  the  village  of  Oxford  Valley,  Falls 
township,  there  is  an  eight-square  schoolhouse,  built  in  the  usual 
was  and  leased  for  a  long  term  of  years,  by  Charles  Henry  Moon, 
and  is  now  being  cared  for.  The  lapse  of  time  made  it  necessary 
to  appoint  new  trustees  in  order  to  save  the  old  schoolhouse  from 
decay,  as  it  had  become  very  much  out  of  repair.  It  was  there- 
fore rescued  and  restored,  so  that  most  of  its  original  design  is 
preserved.  It  is  in  care  of  Mr.  Moon,  who  is  one  of  the  new 
trustees,  and  is  now  being  kept  safe  from  harm,  and  is  a  good 
example  of  that  particular  kind  of  schoolhouse.  One  of  the  best 
known  teachers  of  a  century  ago,  who  taught  there  between  1825 
and  1830,  was  Steward  Dupy. 

In  New  Britain  township,  Bucks  county,  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  from  Fountainville,  and  facing  the  Ferry  road,  an  eight- 
square  schoolhouse  was  occupied  for  school  use  for  many  years 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  stood  on  a  lot 
set  aside  for  school  purposes  on  the  Stewart  homestead,  known 
to  many  of  us  as  the  Arthur  Chapman  farm.  It  was  torn  down 
because  it  was  no  longer  fit  for  restoring.  A  well-known  teacher 
of  that  school  was  Prof.  Clark,  a  graduate  of  Yale  College,  who 
conducted  the  private  school  established  on  the  farm  of  Benjamin 
W.  James.  Many  children  of  well  known  Bucks  county  families 
were  scholars  there. 

An  eight-square  schoolhouse,  built  of  stone,  and  in  general 
design  the  same  as  the  others  I  have  described,  was  located  on  the 
Durham  road  near  the  Plumstead  township  line  in  Buckingham 
township.  It  was  torn  down  some  years  ago  as  it  had  served  its 
usefulness  when  better  schools  came  into  being. 
\  Among  the  buildings  in  old  "Logtown"  now  known  as  Penn's 
Park  in  Wrightstown  township  situated  at  the  toll-gate  site  on 
the  Pineville  and  Richboro  turnpike,  known  also  as  Second 
Street  Pike,  at  the  point  where  it  is  crossed  by  the  Swamp  road, 
stands  on  old  eight-square  schoolhouse.     The  indications  are  that 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT-SQUARE''  SCHOOLHOUSES         257 

the  land  on  which  this  house  stands  was  granted  by  WilHam 
Penn  to  James  Ratchffe,  a  minister  among  Friends,  who  died 
soon  after  the  purchase.  It  was  owned  subsequently  by  the 
Thompson,  Kirk  and  Cunnard  families  until  1799  when  the 
property  was  purchased  by  Joseph  Burson.  By  a  lease  recorded 
at  Doylestown  (Deed  Book  33,  p.  403,  April  1,  1802),  it  was 
leased  for  a  term  of  ninety-nine  years  to  Hugh  Thompson,  James 
Dungan,  Watson  Welding,  Joseph  Sackett,  George  Chapman, 
John  Thompson,  Thomas  Thompson,  Amos  Warner,  Ebenezer 
Cunnard,  Thomas  Gain  and  Jesse  Anderson  for  the  purpose  of 
"having  a  schoolhouse  kept  for  the  benefit  and  advantage  of  him- 
self and  others  of  the  neighborhood.  To  have  and  to  hold  the 
said  lot  of  land  in  trust  for  themselves,  their  heirs  and  assigns 
for  the  special  use  and  purpose  above  mentioned  and  for  no 
other  use  or  purpose  whatsoever,  for  and  during  the  full  end 
and  term  of  ninety-nine  years".  As  this  lease  was  made  in  the 
spring  of  1802  no  doubt  the  building  was  made  ready  for  school 
purposes  during  the  summer.  The  side  walls  are  built  of  stone 
of  several  shades  and  no  attempt  at  uniformity  was  used.  As 
they  appear  today  like  a  bent  stone  wall  the  crudeness  of  the 
construction  of  this  old  house  is  manifest.  The  original  roof  has 
been  replaced  by  tin  in  place  of  the  old  wooden  fan  design.  The 
building  is  cared  for  by  recent  purchasers  who  use  it  for  a  sum- 
mer camping  place.  Enough  of  the  original  materials  used  in  its 
construction  remain,  however,  to  make  it  an  interesting  study  for 
any  one  interested  in  the  kind  and  pattern  of  building  materials 
used  by  the  ordinary  mechanic  of  that  period.  In  design  it  is  the 
same  as  all  the  others.  It  was  used  for  a  schoolhouse  for  more 
than  fifty  years  and  enjoys  the  distinction  of  having  had  several 
well  known  teachers  during  its  history.  Former  pupils  of  this 
school  can  be  found  in  many  states.  So  well  do  they  remember 
the  old  building  of  stone,  and  the  firewood  supplied  by  the  neigh- 
borhood and  the  quaint  old  door  facing  south,  that  a  wish  is 
voiced  by  them  all  that  "it  might  be  kept  in  good  repair  for 
many  years  to  come".  The  number  of  men  and  women  who 
"got  their  first  schooling  here",  is  so  large  that  no  attempt  to  men- 
tion any  of  them  by  name  has  been  made. 

The  furniture  used  in  these  schoolhouses  was  very  plain,  and 
not  furnished  by  contract  or  made  in  some  large   factory,  but 


258         OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT-SQUARE''  SCHOOLHOUSES 

made  by  a  local  carpenter  or  cabinet  maker.  Against  the  walls 
all  around  the  room  was  built  a  sloping  shelf,  about  three  feet 
high,  with  no  line  to  indicate  how  much  space  each  pupil  should 
occupy  and  serving  the  purpose  of  a  desk.  In  front  of  these 
common  desks  long  backless  benches  were  placed  on  which  the 
older  pupils  sat  facing  the  wall.  While  they  studied  they  leaned 
against  the  edge  of  the  shelf-like  desk  and  when  they  wrote  or 
ciphered  they  rested  their  exercise  books  and  slates  on  it.  Under 
it,  on  a  shelf  that  was  not  so  wide  as  the  upper  one,  the  pupils 
kept  their  books  and  other  school-belongings  when  not  in  use. 
A  table  was  placed  about  the  middle  of  the  room,  with  lower 
benches  on  each  side  of  it,  and  there  the  smaller  children  spent 
the  school  hours  over  the  lessons  assigned  to  them  by  the  school 
teacher.  So  far  as  possible  a  young  man  of  promise  in  the 
neighborhood  was  selected  as  teacher  because  he  had  ambitions  to 
become  something  else,  and  now  and  then  because  he  was  not 
"cut  out  for  a  farmer"  but  would  make  a  better  teacher  or 
preacher,  at  least  he  enjoyed  being  so  judged  by  his  friends. 
Taking  into  account  of  course  the  presumption  that  he  must 
have  considered  this  distinction  as  a  mark  of  honor,  no  matter 
how  hard  the  hard-headed  directors  and  an  occasional  pupil 
whose  head  was  hard,  made  his  daily  task.  The  number  of  chil- 
dren a  schoolhouse  would  hold  depended  entirely  on  the  size  of 
the  pupil  and  how  closely  they  could  be  packed  on  the  benches. 
The  number  in  midwinter  was  much  greater  than  in  the  fall 
and  spring  when  the  older  children  were  kept  home  to  help  with 
the  work.  This  being  the  method  by  which  domestic  science, 
agriculture  and  manual  training  was  received  in  those  days  when 
children  went  to  school  to  learn  the  three  R's,  reading,  'riting 
and  'rithmetic.  Thus  learning  how  to  calculate  the  price  of 
things  at  the  store  by  mental  arithmetic  without  using  chalk  or 
a  nail  on  a  barrel-head  or  any  other  thing  convenient  which 
could  be  used  on  which  to  cipher.  On  Friday  afternoons  spelling- 
matches  were  often  held  and  to  these  contests  came  the  older 
brothers  and  sisters  and  often  other  visitors.  Many  communities 
also  held  spelling  matches  in  the  evening  when  they  became  quite 
an  event  and  the  whole  neighborhood  attended  and  made  great 
fun  for  the  young  people.  The  master's  desk  at  the  north  end 
of  the  room  opposite  the  door   (but  inside  the  circle  of  shelves 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT-SQUARe"  SCHOOLHOUSES         259 

or  desks  around  the  room),  was  the  executive  center  of  these 
many-sided  seats  of  learning.  Besides  serving  the  purposes  of  a 
teacher's  desk,  it  was  a  safe  place  for  storing  confiscated  pen- 
knives, balls,  tops,  marbles,  jew's-harps  and  what  not,  and  at 
the  end  of  a  school  term  there  were  real  reminders  of  events 
which  had  caused  pain  or  pleasure,  as  the  master  saw  fit  to  ar- 
range things,  by  using  the  long  rod  which  was  part  of  his  equip- 
ment or  being  a  good  fellow  and  let  it  go  with  a  laugh  enjoyed 
by  all  hands.  "Rewards  of  Merit"  in  the  shape  of  decorated 
cards  with  a  verse  of  poetry  were  given  for  excellence  in  study 
and  conduct.  They  were  secured  in  the  same  way  that  most  such 
things  are  won,  by  getting  a  specified  number  of  small  cards 
and  then  exchanged  for  one  indicating  the  merit  of  the  pupil. 
Many  a  keep-sake  cabinet  contains  these  cards,  and  a  request  to 
tell  who  has  them  would  show  they  are  owned  by  people  all 
around  us.  From  the  lists  of  pupils  who  attended  these  old 
eight-square  schoolhouses  may  be  picked  an  honor  roll  of  names 
good  to  look  at  and  in  which  we  all  must  take  pride. 

The  seats  and  desks  were  made  of  pine  or  oak  wood,  and  not 
alw^ays  of  the  best  workmanship.  They  were  not  improved  by 
use  as  the  years  went  by ;  the  unpainted  or  unpolished  wood  be- 
became  more  stained  from  contact  with  hands,  not  always  well 
looked  after,  and  every  boy  who  owned  a  jack-knife  felt  his 
school-life  was  not  a  success  unless  he  demonstrated  for  him- 
self, and  those  who  followed  him,  that  he  possessed  real  talent 
as  a  wood-carver  or  at  least  at  hacking  and  carving  some  sort 
of  insignia  to  become  a  permanent  ornament  of  the  desk. 

"Those  benches  are  by  far  too  high, 

Their  feet  don't  reach  the  floor; 
Full  many  a  wearj'  back  gets  sick. 

In  that  old  schoolhouse  at  the  creek. 
And  feels  most  woeful   sore. 

Poor  innocents!  behold  them  sit. 

In  miseries  and  woes; 
It  is  no  wonder,  I  declare. 

If  they  should  learn  but  little  there, 
On  benches  such  as  those." 

The  wood-stove  of  unique  design  occupied  a  place  in  the 
middle  of   the   room  and  nearly   roasted  the   little   fellows   w^io 


260         OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT-SQUARE"  SCHOOLHOUSES 

occupied  the  seats  near  it.  The  wood  for  these  stoves  was  usually 
furnished  free  of  charge  by  the  patrons  of  the  school,  and  the 
older  boys  attended  to  keeping  it  cut  and  making  the  fire.  In  the 
schoolyard  the  woodshed  was  conspicuous  for  its  absence  and  the 
very  often  green  wood,  wet  with  rain  or  snow,  made  real  expert 
firemen  out  of  these  boys.  Now  and  then  as  the  wood  smoked 
and  the  chimney  or  the  pipe  would  not  draw  the  schoolhouse 
became  a  smokehouse  and  an  extra  play  time  was  added  to  the 
day's  pleasure.  Sometimes  boys  earned  their  tuition  by  cutting 
wood  and  also  keeping  up  the  fire. 

The  schoolroom  walls  were  void  of  any  decorations  except 
tapestry  of  aelicately  spun  spider  webs  and  weather-stains,  due 
to  the  directors  neglecting  to  have  leaks  fixed.  The  light  from 
the  small  windows  of  small  panes  of  glass  would  hardly  suit  us 
now.  Quill  pens  were  used  and  the  teacher  took  great  pains  and 
pride  in  making  them  and  teaching  his  scholars  the  art  of  mend- 
ing them. 

The  real  reason  for  building  these  houses  "eight-square"  when 
the  schoolhouses  connected  with  the  churches  and  meeting  houses 
were  dififerent,  does  not  appear  to  be  accurately  known.  It  seems 
most  appropriate  that  they  should  be  preserved  by  historical  so- 
cieties as  objects  of  historical  interest  along  with  all  other  build- 
ings possessing  valuable  personal  history. 

"Still  sits  the  schoolhouse  by  the  road, 
A  ragged   beggar   sunning; 
Around  it  still  the   sumachs  grow, 

And  blackberry  vines  are  running." 


Early  History  of  Bedminster  Township. 

RECOLLECTIONS  OF   WILLLAM    H.    KEICHLINE.^ 

(read  by  warren  S.  ELY.) 

(Friends   Meeting  House,    Buckingliam,   June    12,    1920.) 

Philadelphia,  March  19,  1875. 

FRIEND  DAVIS, 
At  your  request,  annexed,  you  will  find  a  few  brief  his- 
torical sketches  of  colonial  times  from  which  you  can  draw 
such  extracts  as  may  be  desirable  for  your  forth-coming  "History 
of  Bucks  County",  or  for  such  purposes  as  you  may  desire. 
They  are  literally  true  and  original,  perhaps  an  error  or  two 
relating  to  dates,  might  occur  which  you  are  at  liberty  to  correct. 
I  have  a  retentive  memory,  running  back  nearly  fifty  years,  be- 
sides an  occasional  documentary  evidence.  Our  mutual  friend 
Gov.  Witte  was  the  only  person  that  saw  them,  being  a  Bucks 
Countian,  he  can  appreciate  such  things  and  remarked  he  would 
like  to  publish  a  series  of  these  sketches,  as  they  would  be  of 
interest  to  the  present  generation  in  that  locality,  but  was  pleased 
that  you  had  them,  as  I  informed  him  that  they  were  intended 
for  you  and  no  one  else. 

Will  you  oblige  by  correcting  my  bad  English  wherever  neces- 
sary, as  they  were  written  from  the  spur  of  the  moment.  If  satis- 
factory, after  a  quiet  perusal,  shall  be  pleased  to  serve  you 
further,  etc. 

Truly  yours, 

W.  H.  Keichline.- 
To  Gen.  W.  W.  H.  Davis, 
Doylestown,  Pa. 

COLONEL   GEORGE   PIPER  AND  THE   PIPERSVILLE   TAVERN. 

Col.  George  Piper,  who  resided  at  Pipersville,  Bedminster 
township,  Bucks  county,  was  born  in  Philadelphia  county,  on  the 

1  The.se  reminiscences  were  found  among  tlie  papers  of  the  late  Gen.  W. 
W.  H.  Davis. 

2  W.  H.  Keichlein,  who  sent  these  papers  to  General  Davis,  was  the  son  of 
Jacob  Keichline.  He  died  at  Philadelphia,  June  29,  1888,  in  73d.  year 
of  his  age. 


262  EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER    TOWNSHIP 

Wissahickon,  November  11,  1755.  He  removed  to  Bucks  county 
and  became  an  officer  in  the  continental  army.  He  married  a 
daughter  of  Arnold  Lear  of  Tinicum  township,  a  relative  of 
Tobias  Lear,  who  was  the  private  secretary  of  Gen.  Washington 
during  the  years  1791  to  1794.  In  1775-76.  Col.  Piper  lived  on 
part  of  the  old  Lear  homestead.  In  1778,  he  moved  into  the 
tavern  located  at  the  intersection  of  the  Philadelphia-Doylestown 
and  the  Durham  and  York  roads,  as  they  were  termed  in  those 
days.  The  York  road  received  its  name  by  reason  of  its  being 
the  direct  road  to  New  York.  And  the  Durham  road 
derived  its  name  in  consequence  of  passing  over  the  Durham  hills 
to  Easton.  At  Stony  Point  a  road  diverged  northwest  via  Bur- 
sonville  and  Springtown  to  Bethlehem.  At  that  time  the  Dur- 
ham road  was  the  only  direct  route  from  Philadelphia  to  Easton, 
Bethlehem  and  Allentown.  Subsequently  a  road  was  located 
from  Willow  Grove  via  Blue  Bell  tavern  and  Crooked  Lane  to 
Doylestown,  Danboro,  Rothrocks  (Plumstedville)  and  to  Col. 
Piper's  tavern,  where  it  formed  a  junction  with  the  Durham  road. 

The  tavern  at  that  period  comprised  the  present  (1875)  cen- 
tral building  which  was  built  by  one  Bladen  about  1759.  Addi- 
tions were  added  from  time  to  time ;  during  the  year  1784  the 
present  parlor  and  diningroom  were  attached;  in  1790  and  1801, 
the  kitchen  and  small  room  to  the  west  of  the  main  building, 
were  added.  The  walls  of  the  center  building  are  fifteen  inches 
thick,  and  it  is  now  one  of  the  most  ancient  houses  in  that  local- 
ity; it  is  still  occupied  as  a  tavern  and  in  an  excellent  state  of 
preservation,  a  relic  of  the  last  century.^ 

Col.  Piper  died  November  15,  1822.  The  hotel  property  then 
passed  into  the  hands  of  his  son-in-law,  Jacob  Keichlein,  who 
was  born  in  Bedminster  township,  September  8,  1776,  and  had 
been  in  his  possession  thirty-six  years,  and  in  possession  of  the 
family  for  upwards  of  eighty  years.  Jacob  Keichlein  died  in 
Philadelphia  February  26,  1861.  A  great  uncle,  Col.  Peter  Keich- 
lein, then  residing  in  Easton.  He  was  one  of  the  first  representa- 
tives from  Northampton  county  in  a  convention  held  in  Phila- 
delphia in  the  years  1773  and  1775,  endorsing  the  action  of  the 

3  Gen.  Davis,  in  a  paper  read  before  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society, 
in  1892  (see  Vol.  II,  page  81),  says  the  old  Pipersville  inn  stood  until  1885, 
when  Jacob  B.  Crouthamel  replaced  it  with  a  commodious  brick  house,  built 
on  the  same  site. 


EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER   TOWNSHIP  263 

continental  congress.  During  the  Revolution  he  raised  a  rifle 
company  in  Northampton  and  Bucks  counties,  which  was  at- 
tached to  Col.  Miles'  regiment,  promoted  to  lieutenant  colonel,  and 
in  command  at  the  Battle  of  Gowanis,  Long  Island,  on  the  27th. 
August,  1776,  under  Generals  Lord  Sterling,  Putnam  and  Wood- 
hull.  The  English  in  command  on  that  occasion  were  General 
Grant,  Lord  Cornwallis  and  Howe.  The  Hessians  were  under 
Gen.  De  Heister.  Lord  Sterling,  in  the  dispatches  to  Gen.  Wash- 
ington says  "the  English  Gen.  Grant  was  killed  by  some  of 
Keichlein's  sharp-shooters." 

During  the  period  that  the  tavern  was  in  possession  of  the 
family,  under  its  hospitable  roof  were  entertained  many  distin- 
guished persons  of  the  last  century.  Among  some  of  the  promi- 
nent friends  and  patrons  of  Col.  Piper  were  Gen.  Anthony 
Wayne,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Gov.  Mifflin.  Timothy  Pickering, 
Robert  Morris,  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  Richard  Bache,  Gen.  Joseph 
Read,  John  Bayard,  Dr.  William  Shippen,  Chief  Justice  Tilgh- 
man,  Judge  Peters,  Judge  Hopkinson,  Judge  Ingersoll,  Capt. 
Hart.  Colonel  Miles,  Colonel  Atlee,  Bishop  White  and 
Rev.  Dr.  Muhlenberg  of  Philadelphia.  Here  upon  several  oc- 
casions Bishop  White  and  Dr.  Muhlenberg  offered  up  their  de- 
votional exercises,  and  old  Timothy  Matlack  cut  his  name  upon 
the  railing  of  the  upper  porch,  which  was  still  visible  in  1827, 
when  the  railing  was  removed.  Mayor  Wharton,  during  the 
yellow  fever  epidemic  in  1798.  boarded  with  his  family  at  the 
Pipersville  tavern.  Stephen  Girard  was  there  on  his  way 
to  Bethlehem.  Col.  Samuel  Sitgreaves  of  Easton  and  Col. 
George  Taylor,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  declaration  of  indepen- 
dence were  bosom  friends  of  Col.  Piper  and  William  Allen, 
for  whom  Allentown  was  named,  was  a  frequent  guest.  Gen. 
John  Cadwallader  spent  many  a  pleasant  hour  there,  amusing 
himself  gunning  along  the  Tohickon  creek,  sometimes  with  Wil- 
liam Logan  and  Casper  Wistar.  Frequently  that  good  man.  Dr. 
George  De  Benneville  of  Branchtown  was  a  visitor,  having  been 
friends  from  boyhood  with  Col.  Piper.  Gen.  Paul  Mallet  Provost, 
called  upon  Col.  Piper  to  assist  him  in  the  purchase  of  some 
lands  in  New  Jersey  where  he  laid  out  and  founded  French- 
town.  Joseph  Bonaparte,  ex-king  of  Spain,  boarded  there  two 
weeks  with  his  suite;  he  had  his  own  French  cooks  and  plate; 


264  EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER   TOWNSHIP 

all  that  was  necessary  was  to  serve  them  with  meats  and  vege- 
tables and  they  prepared  them  for  the  king.  He  took  quite  a 
fancy  to  the  old  Lombardy  poplar  trees  in  front  of  the  house, 
and  told  the  colonel  that  they  reminded  him  of  their  native 
clime,  France. 

This  tavern  being  on  the  main  route,  at  that  period,  from 
Philadelphia  to  Easton,  Bethlehem,  Allentown,  Mauch  Chunk  and 
Wilkes-Barre,  and  having  the  reputation  of  being  one  of  the 
best  kept  taverns  on  the  road,  was  known  all  over  the  country 
and  identified  with  the  name  of  Col.  Piper  and  Mr.  Keichline 
for  nearly  a  century.  There  was  no  public  stage  from  Easton  to 
Philadelphia  prior  to  the  year  1792,  when  the  following  notice 
appeared. 

EASTON   STAGE. 

The  subscriber  takes  this  opportunity  to  inform  the  public, 
that  he  has  erected  a  new  stage  wagon  upon  springs,  which  will 
start  the  29th.  April,  1792,  weekly  from  Easton  to  Philadelphia. 
It  will  start  on  Monday  morning  at  5  o'clock  from  the  subscribers 
house  in  Easton  and  arrive  in  Philadelphia,  house  of  Jacob 
Meitinger,  sign  of  Gen.  Washington,  Vine  street,  return  on 
Thursday  morning  at  5  o'clock.  Fare  $2.00,  150  pounds  of  goods 
allowed,  3  pence  for  each  letter,  way-passengers  3  pence  per  mile. 

JOHN  NICHOLAUS. 

John  Nicholaus's  successor  was  his  son  Samuel,  who  removed 
to  Danboro  in  order  to  take  charge  of  the  stages,  which  were  of 
the  "Gun  Boat"  pattern.  He  was  succeeded  in  1822,  by  James 
Rusides,  who  was  termed  the  "Land  Admiral",  he  formed  a  co- 
partnership with  Jacob  Peters  of  Philadelphia,  and  later  with 
Samuel  and  John  Shouse  of  Easton.  They  placed  upon  the  road 
new  Troy  coaches,  the  first  of  the  kind  in  this  part  of  the  country. 
Upon  the  completion  of  the  Belvidere  Delaware  Railroad  and  the 
North  Penn  Railroad,  the  stages  were  withdrawn. 

CONESTOGA  WAGONS. 

Conestoga  wagons,  as  they  were  termed,  conveyed  all  the 
goods  to  and  from  Easton,  Bethlehem,  Allentown,  Mauch  Chunk 
and  Wilkes-Barre  markets,  they  were  upon  the  road  previous  to 
1770;  they  generally  had  six  horses  with  bells;  the  horses  were 


EARLY   HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER   TOWNSHIP  265 

fed  from  a  trough,  placed  temporarily  upon  the  tongue  of  the 
wagon.  One  of  the  finest  teams  driven  in  the  last  century  was 
owned  by  Michael  Butz,  who  resided  above  Belvidere  in  New 
Jersey;  his  team  consisted  of  six  large  black  horses,  of  equal  size 
and  were  greatly  admired.  Then  came  the  Zellners,  Klotzs,  Sum- 
stones,  Bewighouses,  Myers,  Fretzes,  Joseph  and  David  Stover 
and  others.  Upon  the  completion  of  the  Delaware  Division  canal 
in  1832,  their  occupations  were  gone.^ 

OLD  MILLS  OF  THE  LOWER  PART  OF  BEDMINSTER  TOWNSHIP. 

It  appears  that  Angany's  gristmill  was  the  first  one  erected. 
It  was  built  before  the  Revolution,  on  a  small  island  forming  a 
junction  with  Deep  run,  east  of  the  English  Presbyterian  Church. 
Jacob  Krout's  mill,  on  Deep  run,  is  presumed  to  be  the  next,  and 
Joseph  Tyson's  on  Cabin  run,  they  being  built  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  present  or  latter  part  of  the  last  century.  Then 
comes  Jacob  Stover's  mill  on  the  Tohickon  creek,  near  Keich- 
lein's  tavern.^  About  that  time  Henry  Black  built  his  oil-mill  on 
Cabin  run,  on  the  Durham  road  one-half  mile  below  Keichlein's 
tavern.  Joseph  Drissel's  mill,  on  the  east  of  the  Tohickon,  in 
Tinicum  township,  and  one  mile  northeast  of  Keichleins',  was 
built  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and  is  now  (1875) 
one  of  the  oldest  mills  in  the  upper  part  of  the  county ;  it  is  still 
supplying  its  customers  with  their  daily  bread.  Isaac  Fretz  built 
a  gristmill  upon  the  Tohickon  creek  in  Tinicum  township,  some 
time  after  Drissel.  Anthony  Fretz's  mill  upon  the  same  stream 
in  Plumstead,  was  built  previous  to  the  Isaac  Fretz  mill.  These 
mills,  with  one  exception,  are  yet  in  good  running  condition. 
Some  years  ago,  Krout,  Drissel,  Fretz  and  Stover  introduced 
machinery  for  the  manufacture  of  linseed  oil,  but  when  flax 
seed  became  scarce  the  machinery  for  making  linseed  oil  was 
removed 

OLD    CHURCHES    OF    BEDMINSTER    AND    VICINITY. 

During  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  a  few  of  the  first- 
settlers,  erected  a  church,  which  they  built  of  hewn  timber;  it 
was  located  on  the  Durham  road,  two  and  a  half  miles  below 

4  Mr  Keichlein  fails  to  notice  and  give  credit  to  the  Durham  boats 
which  carried  freight  down  the  Delaware  river  before  roads  were  opened. 

5  This  gristmill  was  in  operation  in  early  colonial  times. 


266  EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMIXSTER    TOWNSHIP 

Keichlein's  tavern  at  the  intersection  of  the  river  road.  A  suf- 
ficient space  of  ground  was  cleared  on  the  northeast  corner  so  as 
to  afford  room  for  the  church  building  and  the  graveyard.  The 
people  had  to  depend  upon  an  occasional  supply  pastor  from  other 
localities,  and  such  itinerants  as  came  along.  All  traces  of  the 
building  and  graveyard  disappeared  years  ago,  and  not  a  vestige 
is  left  to  designate  their  location.  The  presumption  is  that  the 
next  church,  in  Tinicum,  was  built  of  hewn  timber  and  located 
on  the  hill  adjacent  to  the  old  graveyard,  in  which  there  were  many 
graves  of  a  remote  period.  This  spot  is  about  one-fourth  of  a 
mile  above  the  present  old  Tinicum  church  built  for  the  joint 
worship  of  the  German  Presbyterian  (Reformed)  and  the  Luth- 
erans. This  building  must  have  been  removed  about  the  year 
1800,  as  in  the  year  1812,  a  brick  church  building  was  erected, 
down  at  the  road  leading  from  Keichlein's  tavern  to  Frenchtown 
and  Erwinna.  Not  long  ago  the  brick  church  was  removed  and 
gave  place  to  a  more  modern  edifice.  The  next  church  to  be 
erected  was  Keichlein's  church,  on  the  Tohickon  creek,  so  called 
because  the  land  had  been  donated  by  Andrew  Keichlein,  who 
resided  near  by.     This  was  later  called  Tohickon  church. 

The  old  church  was  removed  some  years  ago  and  a  new  one 
erected  upon  the  site.  It  was  German  Presbyterian  (Reformed) 
and  Lutheran.  Then  the  erection  of  Menonite  Meeting  House 
runs  very  far  back  into  the  last  century,  and  so  too  does  the 
English  Presbyterian  church  (called  the  Irish  church)  at  Deep 
run  and  the  Red  Hill  church  and  Kellers  which  is  Reformed  and 
Lutheran. 

THE   OLD   SCHOOLHOUSE  AT  DEEP   RUN    HILL. 

The  old  schoolhouse  at  Deep  Run  Hill  was  located  on  the 
Easton  road  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile  above  Keichlein's  inn, 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill  near  the  creek.  It  was  built  in  1808.  by 
Col.  George  Piper,  Abraham  High,  William  Myers,  and  Frederick 
Keeler.  Among  the  numerous  teachers  employed  was  Hon. 
Charles  B.  Trego,  who  subsequently  moved  to  Philadelphia  where 
he  filled  several  important  positions,  such  as  president  of  com- 
mon council,  state  senator,  etc.  Mr.  Trego  died  a  year  or  so  ago 
at  an  advanced  age,  at  his  residence  in  Germantown.     The  old 


EARLY    HISTORY    OF   BEDMINSTER    TOWNSHIP  267 

schoolhouse  was  torn  down  some  years  ago  and  is  among  the 
bygones. 

A  BRAVE  AND  PATRIOTIC  WOMAN  OF  CONTINENTAL  TIMES. 

Col.  George  Piper  having  occasion  to  visit  Newtown,  then  the 
county  seat  of  Bucks  county,  to  attend  to  some  business,  his 
wife,  Eve,  remained  at  home  with  no  one  except  her  two  chil- 
dren and  the  hired-man.  In  the  meantime  Gibson  and  Geddis, 
friends  and  companions  of  the  outlaw  Doans,  paid  a  visit  to  the 
inn,  and  finding  Col.  Piper  absent  and  as  was  their  custom  be- 
haved rudely.  Mrs.  Piper  was  in  the  kitchen  engaged  in  ironing 
at  the  time,  and  in  the  old  chimney-corner  had  been  placed  a  pan 
of  buckwheat  batter  in  the  process  of  raising.  Geddis  deliberate- 
ly walked  up,  placed  his  boot  and  foot  into  the  pan,  whereup 
Mrs.  Piper  threw  the  flat-iron  at  him,  striking  his  arm  below  the 
shoulder,  fracturing  it  badly.  Immediately  Gibson  tried  to  strike 
her  with  the  butt  end  of  his  whip.  Whereupon  she  retreated  into 
a  side  room,  procured  the  colonel's  sword  and  drove  the  cowardly 
rufHans  from  the  house.  Geddis  being  unable  to  mount  his  horse, 
had  to  walk,  leading  the  horse  until  they  arrived  at  the  farm  of 
George  Fox,  one  and  one-half  miles,  southwest  from  the  tavern, 
where  old  Dr.  Shafifer  boarded.  After  the  doctor  had  set  his 
arm  they  left  for  their  homes  at  Smith's  Corner,  in  Plumstead 
township.  Subsequently  Geddis  brought  suit  against  the  cour- 
ageous Mrs.  Piper  in  the  court  at  Newtown,  but  ultimately 
abandoned  it,  fearing  the  vengeance  of  the  people,  as  they  warned 
him  that  his  precious  life  might  be  in  danger.  This  was  the 
same  Gibson  who  shot  Doan  in  the  cabin  on  the  Tohickon  creek, 
for  fear  his  evidence  might  implicate  him  in  connection  with  the 
crimes  of  these  outlaws. 

There  is  another  incident  in  the  early  hfe  of  that  truly  patriotic 
woman  that  should  forever  hold  her  memory  green  to  all  lovers 
of  patriotism  throughout  our  land.  During  the  struggle  of  the 
Revolution,  Col.  Piper,  then  a  captain  in  command  of  a  com- 
pany of  militia  or  volunteers,  located  at  Black  Rock,  had  charge 
of  the  outposts  near  Fort  Washington.  Black  Rock  received  its 
name  from  a  flat  rock  lying  near  the  York  or  Easton  road, 
where  the  Indians  often  held  their  councils  of  war  and  also  on 
this  rock  sacrificed  their  prisoners.     It  was  known  by  that  name 


268  EARLY    HISTORY   OF    BEDMINSTER   TOWNSHIP 

long  after  the  Revolution,  subsequently  it  was  changed  to  Miles- 
town  in  honor  of  Col.  Miles,  and  still  later  changed  to  Branch- 
town.  This  place  was  the  residence  of  the  elder  DeBenneville, 
father  of  Dr.  George  DeBenneville,  a  surgeon  in  the  continental 
army,  and  it  was  there  that  Capt.  Piper  made  his  acquaintance, 
which  lasted  throughout  the  remainder  of  their  lives.  Capt. 
Piper's  soldiers  were  almost  destitute  of  shoes  and  clothing, 
when  he  conceived  the  idea  of  getting  a  furlough  of  twenty-four 
hours,  in  order  to  enable  him  to  go  home  in  quest  of  some  money. 
His  wife,  Eve,  had  inherited  from  her  father,  Arnold  Lear, 
£325  in  gold  which  was  secreted  in  an  old  crock  and  buried  in 
the  cellar.  The  captain  having  rather  unexpectedly  returned 
and  to  the  surprise  of  his  good  wife,  she  exclaimed  "why,  George ! 
what  brings  you  home,  has  our  little  army  been  defeated?"  "No, 
Eve,"  he  replied,  "I  have  ridden  all  day  and  I  am  nearly  starved." 
She  speedily  prepared  him  a  repast  and  while  eating  it,  he  told 
her  the  object  of  his  visit,  which  was  to  procure  from  her  the 
loan  of  her  dowry ;  without  any  hesitation  whatever  she  replied 
"well  George,  take  it,  together  with  my  blessing  for  the  good 
cause."  The  gold  was  placed  in  a  pair  of  old  saddlebags,  and  in 
the  grey  mist  of  the  morning  he  bid  adieu  to  his  dear  wife,  and 
arrived  in  safety  back  to  the  camp  and  relieved  the  needs  of  his 
men.  The  government  subsequently  refunded  the  amount  in 
continental  currency,  which  proved  worthless ;  it  was  stowed 
away  in  a  beehive  in  the  garret.  The  family  retain  some  por- 
tions of  it  as  relics  of  bygone  days. 

REMINISCENCES   OF    CONTINENTAL   TIMES. 

During  the  absence  of  Col.  George  Piper,  upon  the  occasion 
previously  referred  to,  a  man  was  arrested,  while  on  horseback, 
in  the  act  of  crossing  the  American  lines  or  outposts,  near  Black 
Rock,  having  upon  his  horse  a  packsaddle  containing  butter  and 
eggs  destined  for  the  British  army  in  Philadelphia.  His  name  was 
Tyson  and  he  resided  in  Bedminster  township,  near  Col.  Piper's 
tavern.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Mennonite  society  at  Deep 
Run.  These  people  generally  sided  with  the  British  during  the 
Revolution  and  their  sympathies  are  now  and  always  have  been 
with  the  radicals  of  the  present  time.  Upon  the  return  of  the 
colonel,  he  found  Tyson  in  close  custody,  having  been  regularly 


EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER   TOWNSHIP  269 

courtmarshalled.  He  had  the  decree  of  court  modified  to  the 
extent  that  his  punishment  was  to  be,  that  he  be  stripped  to  his 
waist,  tied  to  a  tree  with  a  dozen  soldiers  placed  ten  paces  away 
each  supplied  bountifully  with  eggs,  and  at  the  word  "fire",  his 
precious  body  was  reduced  to  an  eggnog,  his  gray  horse  was  con- 
fiscated and  he  was  allowed  to  depart,  with  the  assurance,  if  he 
ever  came  down  that  way  again,  that  he  would  be  shot.  The  tree 
to  which  he  was  tied  is  still  (1875)  standing  as  a  commemoration 
of  the  event. 

THE  SHAD  FISHERIES  OF  TINICUM. 

There  were  a  number  of  shad  fisheries  upon  the  Delaware  river, 
between  the  Tohickon  and  Tinicum  creeks.  "Cowells",  near 
Point  Pleasant,  in  the  early  part  of  the  present  century,  was  an 
exceedingly  lucrative  one.  At  one  period,  however,  "Ridges" 
was  the  most  profitable  one.  Col.  Piper  said,  that  in  1810  from 
1,200  to  1,500  shad  were  frequently  caught  in  a  single  day  upon 
the  small  island,  directly  opposite  Ridge's  house.  He  likewise 
described  "Old  Ned  Ridge",  seated  in  a  tree  on  the  south  part  of 
the  island,  watching  for  the  approach  of  a  school  of  shad,  to 
pass  up  stream,  which  would  enable  him  to  make  the  discovery 
by  the  ripples  created  upon  the  water,  as  they  generally  swam 
near  the  surface.  On  seeing  the  ripples  he  would  give  notice  for 
the  preparation  of  the  haul.  The  "Cabin  Fishery"  was  located 
half-a-mile  above  Ridges;  it  was  prosperous  and  produced  con- 
siderable revenue.  The  "Drive  Factory",  on  the  New  Jersey 
side  of  the  large  island,  was  another  productive  one,  and  the 
"Sweet  Briar",  on  the  New  Jersey  shore  opposite,  was  equally 
profitable.  Shad  taken  from  these  waters  were  of  the  finest  kind, 
and  were  caught  in  abundance  up  to  1825,  and  from  that  time 
up  to  1842,  in  fair  quantities.  They,  however,  grew  less  plentiful 
from  year  to  year,  in  that  neighborhood. 

ERWINNA  ON  THE  DELAWARE  RIVER. 

This  town  was  laid  out  by  Arthur  Erwin,  a  Scotch-Irishman, 
as  he  was  termed,  dating  back  into  the  last  century.*'  He  repre- 
sented Bucks  county  in  the  legislature  in  the  year  1785,  and  hav- 
ing occasion  to  visit  Luzerne  county  in  the  spring  of   1791,  to 

0   See  paper  on  Col.  Arthur  Erwin  by  Dr.  Fackenthal,  this  volume,  page  433. 


270  EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMIXSTER   TOWNSHIP 

look  after  his  property,  was  assassinated  at  the  house  of  Samuel 
McAfee.  Some  attributed  this  act  to  his  sentiments  derogatory  to 
the  principles  of  a  spirit  of  patriotism.  Upon  the  ninth  day  of 
June,  1791,  Gov.  Mifflin  offered  a  reward  of  two  hundred  dollars 
for  the  arrest  of  the  guilty  parties.  Col.  Arthur  Erwin  left 
several  children  among  them  was  William  Erwin  who  in  the 
early  part  of  the  present  century,  took  quite  an  active  part  in  the 
politics  of  the  day,  and  represented  Bucks  county  in  the  legisla- 
ture; he  was  always  cl  violent  opponent  to  the  Democratic  party. 
His  lands  adjoin  those  of  Thomas  G.  Kennedy,^  who  was  at  one 
time  sheriff  of  Bucks  county.  Henry  Stover  is  now  the  owner 
of  the  Kennedy  farm. 

NETTING  PIGEONS  IN  BEDMINSTER  IN  THE  OLDEN  TIMES. " 

From  1784  to  1824,  wild  pigeons  were  caught  in  large  quan- 
tities in  nets  by  numerous  parties.  Among  the  experts,  in  those 
sports,  and  who  excelled  in  that  line,  were  Abraham  Kulp, 
Jacob  Wismer,  Jacob  Angeny  and  Abraham  Overholt.  Pigeons 
generally  when  migrating,  and  particularly  in  those  days,  always 
traveled  in  large  flocks.  The  customary  cabin  in  which  the 
operators  were  concealed,  was  generally  erected  in  buckwheat 
fields,  and  constructed  of  cedar  bushes,  so  as  to  completely  con- 
ceal the  trapper  from  observation.  When  the  flock  of  pigeons 
was  about  to  pass  over  the  cabin  the  flyer-pigeon  was  thrown 
upward,  attached  to  a  line  about  fifty  yards  long  which  was  con- 
nected to  the  trapper  in  the  cabin.  In  performing  this  exploit 
it  was  done  for  the  purpose  of  attracting  the  attention  of  the 
passing  flock,  then  the  operator  played  the  stool-pigeon,  in  order 
to  attract  the  attention  of  the  ground.  The  trapper  stood  upon 
a  small  platform  and  operated  from  within  by  a  string.  The 
stool-pigeon  was  blinded  by  sewing  together,  with  white  silk, 
the  eyelids.  When  the  pigeons  were  attracted  to  the  spot  de- 
sired, the  net  was  sprung  over  them  when  all  within  the  range  of 
the  net  were  made  prisoners.  Jacob  Wismer  frequently  caught, 
before  breakfast,  as  many  pigeons  as  would  fill  two  or  three  bar- 
rels.    Many  parties  salted  the  pigeons  down  for  future  use,  all 

7  Thomas  G.  Kennedy  was  a  son-in-law  of  William  Erwin. 

8  See  paper  on  "The  Last  of  the  Wild  Pigeons,"  by  Col.  Paxson,  Vol.  IV, 
p.   367. 


EARLY    HISTORY   OF    BEDAriXSTER   TOWNSHIP  271 

were  treated  that  way  except  those  that  were  sold  in  the  markets, 
the  price  being  at  the  rate  of  twenty-five  cents  per  dozen. 

PEACHES    IN    BEDMINSTER. 

Peaches  and  other  fruits  were  cultivated  in  great  abundance  in 
Bedmister  township  from  1811  to  1825.  The  crops  were  the 
most  prohfic  during  the  years  1817-18-19  and  20.  Abraham  High 
Hving  one  mile  northwest  from  Keichlein's  inn  during  those  years 
took  a  number  of  wagon  loads  of  peaches  to  Jacob  Stover's  dis- 
tillery, where  they  were  made  into  peach  brandy.  Joseph  Town- 
send,  Nicholas  Garis,  Jacob  Laux  and  Jacob  Krout  had  more 
peaches  than  they  could  consume  or  give  away,  besides  Jacob 
Krout  made  a  large  quantity  of  peach  brandy,  which  he  sold  as 
low  as  twelve  cents  a  quart.  Pears  and  cherries  were  exceedingly 
abundant  in  those  days. 

ANECDOTE. 

Gen.  Thomas  Cadwallader  was  a  noble  specimen  of  manhood. 
During  his  sojourn  at  Jacob  Kichlein's  inn.  in  1828.  in  company 
with  Sebastian  Logan,  enjoying  their  favorite  amusements,  gun- 
ning, etc.,  one  morning  having  had  occasion  to  pass  over  one  of 
Tinsman's  fields  after  a  covey  of  partridges,  and  when  about  in 
the  center  of  the  field,  they  discovered  a  large  and  furious  black 
bull  running  toward  them  and  bellowing  at  a  fearful  rate ;  all 
retreat  being  cut  ofif,  there  was  no  other  alternative,  but  to  stand 
their  ground ;  as  the  bull  approached  within  convenient  distance. 
Gen.  Cadwallader  fired  the  contents  of  his  double-barrel  shot 
gun  into  his  head  and  face.  Shaking  his  head,  the  bull  beat  a 
hasty  retreat,  minus  an  eye.  This  little  freak  cost  the  general 
ten  dollars.  The  general  was  what  might  be  called  a  "crack 
shot",  he  seldom  missed  his  mark,  although  he  was  troubled  with 
a  ball  in  his  arm  near  his  wrist,  received  in  a  duel  with  Mr. 
Randolph. 

The  following  items  are  copied  from  newspaper  clippings  at- 
tached to  the  notes  of  William  H.  Keichlein.  which  he  sent  to 
Gen.  W.  W.  H.  Davis.  March  19,  1875 : 

RELICS  OF  1776. 
Among   other    curiosities    of    literature,    we    have    had    placed    in    our 


272  EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER    TOWNSHIP 

hands  several  documents,  so  carefully  preserved  that  it  is  remarkable, 
and  we  certainly  deem  them  worthy  of  preservation,  particularly  the 
funeral-sermon  and  the  certificate  of  naturalization.  They  are  per- 
taining to  the  history  of  the  ancestors  of  our  esteemed  friend.  Col. 
William  H.  Keichlein,  one  of  the  inspectors  of  the  Philadelphia  county 
prison;  and  of  his  brother,  Dr.  Charles  P.  Keichlein.  The  documents 
are  certainly  relics  of  our  colonial  history,  the  Revolution  and  the  War 
of  1776.  It  appears  that  the  great-great-grandfather  of  the  Keich- 
leins,  John  Peter  Keichlein,  emigrated  to  this  country  from  Germany, 
as  far  back  as  1742,  and  settled  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania  as  a  good  and 
substantial  agriculturist.  He  was  blessed  with  three  sons,  who  were 
born  amid  contentment  and  happiness,  their  parents  never  anticipat- 
ing an  event  so  striking  as  that  which  occurred  a  few  years  later,  when 
a  voice  from  Virginia  called  them  to  the  field.  The  young  men  en- 
tered the  continental  army,  where  they  shortly  rose  to  distinction  and 
honor.  Peter  was  made  a  colonel.  Andrew  was  promoted  to  major  on 
the  battle  field  of  Monmouth,  and  placed  upon  the  staflf  of  General 
Mercer;  while  Charles,  the  youngest,  was  made  a  lieutenant,  he  having 
entered  the  army  at  a  later  period.  This  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
instances  on  record  in  those  days,  wherein  three  officers  were  from  the 
same  family.     But  to  the  documents,  which   speak   for  themselves. 

(The   above   from   a    Sunday   morning   paper,   the   name   of   which    is 
not  legible.) 

Spring  Mills  Farm,  Pa. 
To.   Col.    Peter  Kichlein,  July   17,    1777. 

Sir: 

I  have  the  pleasure  of  dating  this  from  my  own  house,  where 
I  arrived  last  week  in  tolerable  health,  and  where  I  hope  to  remain 
for  some  time.  The  following  is  the  state  of  your  account  with  me  at 
New  York.  The  balance  I  expect  you  will  remit  me  the  first  oppor- 
tunity, in  silver  or  gold. 

I  am  your  very  humble   servant, 

Sam'l  Miles. 

COL.  PETER  KEICHLEIN 

TO  SAM'L  MILES         DR. 

To   8   Linen   Shirts   for   your   officers,   at   1  /i   sterling,    is 
12/10  New  York  currency 

Cash  on  board  the  scow  Mentor 

1  Uniform  coat 

Expense  on  board  the  Mentor,  your  share 

Cash  paid   Mrs.   Carrow,  your  board 

Cash  paid  Mrs.  Alyre,  in  Jersey  money 

Charged  by  Mr.   Chanter 

Your  share  of  expenses  at  Mrs.  Carrows 


£  5 

3 

0 

3 

4 

0 

3 

10 

0 

5 

9 

9 

4 

14 

3 

1 

0 

0 

4 

16 

0 

1 

2 

1 

£28 

19 

1 

EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER  TOWNSHIP                    273 

CR. 

By  cash  at  Mrs.  Carrows                          £   6     10  4 

do         do           do                                     3       4  0                     ■  9     14       4 


The  balance  in  New  York  currency  is  £19       4       9 

which  is  £19-0-9  Pennsylvania. 
Note  in  pencil  by  William  H.  Keichlein — Col.  Keichlein  received  this 
letter    while    on    board    ship    "Mentor",    after    the    Battle    of    Gowanis, 
Long   Island. 

FUNERAL  DISCOURSE  AT  THE  GRAVE  OF  COLONEL   MILES. 

The  following  is  a  copy  of  a  Discourse  delivered  at  the  grave 
of  Colonel  Miles,  the  bosom  friend  of  Colonel  Peter  Keichlein. 
The  manuscript  is  in  excellent  state  of  preservation,  the  paper 
upon  which  it  is  written  being  scarcely  soiled.  It  was  evidently 
written  by  the  Reverend  gentleman  who  delivered  it.  or  by  a 
friend.  It  is  a  most  beautiful  tribute  to  the  lamented  dead,  and 
is  worthy  of  perusal. 

On  Tuesday  morning,  Dec.  31,  1805,  were  deposited  in  a  vault  in  the 
graveyard  of  the  First  Baptist  church,  Philadelphia,  the  remains  of  Col. 
Samuel  Miles,  of  Cheltenham,  who  departed  this  life  the  29th.  instant, 
aged  67  years. 

The  deserved  character  of  this  excellent  man  is  drawn  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Rogers,  who  delivered  an  address  at  his  grave,  in  substance  as 
follows : 

Under  an  impression  of  the  truth  and  importance  of  these  principles, 
(referring  to  the  great  principles  of  the  Christian  system),  lived  and 
died  our  dear  friend,  our  beloved  brother.  They  were  regarded  by  him 
not  merely  as  subjects  of  speculation,  but  designed  to  sanctify  the  heart, 
and  direct  the  life  and  conversation.  In  all  the  relationship  of  society, 
their  effect  was  visible.  As  a  citizen  he  was  respected  and  beloved. 
Not  only  might  I  call  upon  the  immediate  circle  of  his  acquaintance, 
but  the  inhabitants  of  this  city  and  commonwealth  to  look  into  yonder 
vault,  and  there  see  the  mortal  part  of  one  whose  heart  was  bent  on 
their  prosperity.  As  a  soldier  he  not  only  distinguished  himself  in  the 
important  Revolution  which  broke  our  chains  and  established  our  tri- 
umphing independence,  but  before  the  Revolution  in  the  field  of  con- 
test, he  was  known  to  be  an  officer  never  tardy  in  the  service  of  his 
country.  His  military  character,  till  he  laid  down  the  sword,  was  pre- 
served without  a  blot.  As  a  Representative  of  this  State,  he  discharged, 
it  is  believed,  his  official  duties  in  such  a  way  as  must  awaken  in  the 
bosom  of  all  his  constituents,  who  regret  at  the  recital  of  his  loss.  The 
duties  of  a  husband  he  fulfilled  with  fidelity  and  affection,  until  death 
tore  his  estimable  wife  from  his  embraces.  As  a  father  he  was  indul- 
gent, and  as  a  sincere  friend.     But  the  character  in  which  he  pre-emi- 


274  EARLY    HISTORY   OF   BEDMINSTER   TOWNSHIP 

nently  shone,  and  to  which  these  were  but  appendages,  was  that  of  a 
Christian.  "A  Christian  is  the  highest  style  of  man".  Often  have  I 
heard  hiiri  relate  the  story  of  his  pious  experience,  and  as  often  declare 
his  entire  confidence  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  His  pil- 
grimage is  now  closed.  His  spirit,  we  believe,  is  now  with  the  spirits 
of  the  just,  and  with  holy  angels  in  glory;  and  the  hour  is  coming 
when  Jesus,  who  is  the  "resurrection  and  the  life",  shall  raise  in  power 
the  dust  we  are  now  sowing  in  weakness.  Ohl  that  in  prospect  of  the 
hour  of  death,  and  of  the  day  of  judgment,  we  may  now  seek  the  for- 
giveness of  our  sins,  the  sanctification  of  our  hearts,  and  all  that 
grace  which  can  render  our  lives  useful  and  our  deaths  happy. 

CHARLES  KEICHLEIN  TAKES  THE  ''tEST  OATH." 


I    do   hereby   certify,    that    CHARLES    KEICHLEIN,    of    Bucks 
county,   hath  voluntarily   taken   and    subscribed   the    Oath   of   Al- 
legiance and  Fidelity  as  directed  by  an  act  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, passed  the  13th.  day  of  June,  A.  D.  1777. 
Witness  my  hand  and  seal,  the  14th.  day  of  October,  A.  D.  1777. 

Thomas  Dyer. 
No.  101 


To   Richard   Backhouse, 

Durham  Furnace,  Bucks  County, 
Sir: 

Mr.  McNeal  informs  me  of  a  matter  concerning  the  said  Mc- 
Neal's  son,  who  has  enlisted  as  a  volunteer  from  this  State,  with  Cap- 
tain Shoop,  of  Nockamixon,  and  that  he  has  since  been  arrested  by  you 
for  some  labor  that  he  had  to  do,  and  that  he  is  confined  on  that  ac- 
count. Therefore,  I  send  you  these  few  lines,  giving  my  advice  to 
settle  the  matter  with  the  man,  and  not  to  detain  him  from  the  service 
in  which  he  entered  and  enlisted;  and  that  I  hope  you  are  a  good  friend 
of  the  cause,  that  you  will  exchange  the  man  from  his  confinement,  as 
Mr.  McNeal  tells  me  he  is  willing  to  allow  any  thing  in  reason  for  dam- 
age done  by  him. 

Sir,  I  am,  with  all  respects,  your  most  obedient  and  humble  servant, 

Andrew   Keichlein. 


Biographical  Notice  of  John  A.  Ruth, 

BY   B.    F.    FACKENTHAL,    JR.,    SC.D.,    RIEGELSVILLE,    PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  9,  1920.) 

OUR  president,  Dr.  Mercer,  has  asked  me  to  prepare  a  bi- 
graphical  notice  of  Mr.  Ruth,  saying  that  he  appreciated 
the  careful  and  painstaking  work  that  he  had  accompHshed 
as  a  local  historian,  archaeologist  and  botanist,  and  moreover 
he  and  his  brother,  Harvey  F.  Ruth,  had  very  generously  given 
their  archaeological  collection  to  the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society.     I  am  indeed  glad  to  comply  with  his  request. 

In  preparing  this  paper  I  have  drawn  largely  from  a  manu- 
script copy  of  his  autobiography,  which  he  says  he  prepared  for 
his  children,  a  copy  of  which  has  fallen  into  my  hands.  This  en- 
tire autobiography  is  well  worth  reading  before  this  society ;  it  so 
simply  and  graphically  tells  the  story  of  his  life,  as  to  make  it  a 
classic.  He  was  of  a  religious  turn  of  mind,  a  faithful  church  and 
Sunday  school  worker.  He  was  first  a  member  of  the  Reformed 
Church,  and  later  after  his  marriage,  of  the  Lutheran  Church, 
of  which  his  wife  was  a  member.  He  was  a  Christian  gentleman 
without  cant  or  hypocracy,  modest  and  retiring  in  his  disposition. 

The  introductory  page  of  his  autobiography  is  headed  with 
these  lines : 

"And  thou  shall  remember  all  the  way  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
led  thee." 

John  A.  Ruth  was  born  in  Durham  Township.  Bucks  County, 
Pa.,  October  8,  1859.  The  son  of  Charles  Ruth  (B.  Oct.  11,  1830, 
d.  March  10,  1899),  and  his  wife  MatHda  (B.  Dec.  1,  1830,  d. 
Dec.  31,  1906),  daughter  of  Peter  and  Elizabeth  (Long)  Facken- 
thal.  On  September  1,  1890,  he  married  Kate  S.,  daughter  of 
John  and  Julia  (Trauger)  Nicholas. 

In  1861  he  moved  with  his  parents  to  Springfield  Township 
where  they  lived  until  1872.  when  they  moved  back  to  Durham 
Township. 

His  autobiography  enters  into  detail  concerning  his  childhood 
days  at  Springtown.  He  gives  his  impressions  of  matters  and 
things  and  the  people  he  came  in  contact  with.  He  describes 
the  old  tannery  and  the  two  tanners  who  operated  it.  within  his 


276  BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICE  OF  JOHN  A.  RUTH. 

recollection,  Mr.  Gerlack  and  Mr.  Kramer.  He  also  tells  of  the 
village  store,  the  blacksmith  shop,  the  hotel,  village  doctor,  the 
churches  and  schoolhouses,  and  gives  considerable  space  to 
Cook's,  later  Durham  Creek,  and  discusses  the  uncertain  origin 
of  its  name.  He  also  speaks  of  the  stone  arch  bridge  across  the 
creek.  He  tells  of  the  schools  he  attended  and  gives  his  estima- 
tion of  the  teachers  and  the  influence  they  had  upon  his  life. 
His  father  was  a  blacksmith  by  trade,  but  at  times  turned  farmer 
and  did  other  laboring  work.  John  attended  school  in  winters 
and  worked  during  the  summers,  mostly  on  farms. 

On  January  2,  1876,  he  entered  the  State  Normal  School  at 
West  Chester,  Pa.,  where  he  remained  for  six  months.  In  the 
winter  of  1876-77,  he  attended  the  grammar  school  at  Riegels- 
ville.  In  1877,  at  the  age  of  18  years  he  began  his  career  as  a 
school  teacher.  He  taught  eleven  terms  in  the  public  schools,  and 
was  given  a  permanent  certificate  by  Superintendent  W.  W. 
Woodruff.  In  1888  he  entered  the  car  accounting  department 
of  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad  Company  at  Bethlehem,  Pa.  Two 
years  later  he  built  for  himself  and  his  bride  a  new  home  in 
what  was  then  W^est  Bethlehem.  He  remained  in  Bethlehem  for 
twenty-five  years,  when  owing  to  failing  health,  he  resigned  his 
position  with  the  Lehigh  Valley  Railroad  Company  and  moved 
to  Clifton,  N.  J.,  in  order  to  make  a  home  for  his  daughter,  who 
was  teaching  in  the  high  school  of  that  city.  He  passed  away  at 
Clifton,  February  26,  1918,  in  the  59th.  year  of  his  age.  He  is 
survived  by  his  widow  and  his  two  children.  Bertha  Matilda 
and  Charles  Nicholas. 

While  living  in  Durham  Township  he  and  his  brother,  Harvey 
F.  ( b.  1866,  d.  1904) .  took  up,  self  taught,  the  study  of  geology  and 
archaeology,  and  later  the  study  of  botany.  There  had  been 
much  speculation  and  discussion,  including  historical  papers  and 
newspaper  contributions,  as  to  the  location  of  the  Indian  village 
of  Pechoquelin,  where  the  Shawnee  Indians  resided  from  1698 
to  1728.  Mr.  Ruth  finally,  and  I  believe  correctly,  located  that 
village-site  in  Durham  Township,  on  the  peninsula  north  side  of 
where  Gallows  Run  (Indian  name  Pferlefakon),  empties  into  the 
Delaware  River.  There  are  evidences  there  of  an  extensive  In- 
dian village,  and  there  the  Ruth  brothers  found  hundreds  of  speci- 
mens, including  many  pot  sherds.     The  discovery  of  the  location 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICE  OF  JOHN  A.  RUTH  277 

of  the  site  of  the  Indian  village  Pechoquelin  must  therefore  be 
credited  to  Mr.  Ruth. 

Mr.  Ruth  was  asked  by  the  Smithsonian  Institute  at  Washing- 
ton, to  prepare  a  chart  of  Durham  and  vicinity  to  show  where  he 
collected  his  many  archaeological  specimens.  He  was  pleased  to 
comply  with  that  request,  and  it  was  published  in  the  Smithson- 
ian report  for  the  year  1881. 

In  1897  Mr.  Ruth  and  his  brother  very  generously  donated  the 
greater  part  of  their  archaeological  and  geological  cabinet  to  the 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  and  it  was  his  wish  that  the  re- 
mainder should,  on  his  passing  away,  also  be  presented  to  that 
society.  His  wish  was  complied  with,  and  added  to  their  original 
gift,  aggregated  about  4,000  specimens.  All  their  specimens, 
both  archaeological  and  botanical,  are  marked  J.  A.  &  H.  F. 
Ruth ;  he  was  always  very  careful  to  give  his  brother  equal  credit. 

As  botanists  they  were  close  collectors,  they  were  not  content 
with  the  ordinary  flora,  but  were  collectors  of  grasses  and  mosses, 
on  which  they  soon  became  authorities.  In  botanical  text  books 
they  are  credited  with  new  and  rare  plants.  Dr.  Thomas  C. 
Porter,  Dr.  N.  L.  Britton  and  many  other  noted  botanists  were 
their  correspondents.  Dr.  Porter  often  spoke  to  me  of  their 
herbarium  as  a  model  of  neatness  in  every  respect,  mounting  and 
labeling.  It  is  now  in  my  possession,  I  have  however  loaned  it  to 
the  Academy  of  Natural  Science  at  Philadelphia,  who  knowing 
its  value  asked  for  its  loan  in  order  to  check  up  some  of  their  own 
plants.  Not  only  are  the  Indian  relics  and  plants  labeled,  but 
they  are  accompanied  by  carefully  prepared  records  and  charts, 
showing  the  exact  places  where  the  specimens  were  found.  Among 
the  many  new  plants  found  by  them  was  the  white  gentian  found 
near  the  Indian  Jasper  quarry  on  Rattlesnake  Hill  in  Durham 
Township.  Their  opinion,  also  that  of  Dr.  Porter  was,  that  it  was 
not  native  to  that  locality,  but  was  doubtless  carried  there,  in  some 
unknown  way  by  migratory  Indians.^ 

Mr.  Ruth  was  also  a  splendid  local  historian.  He  contributed 
several  papers  to  our  society,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  also 
quite  a  number  of  papers  to  other  local  historical  societies.  He 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Buckwampun  Historical  So- 
ciety in  1888,  to  which  he  and  his  brother  contributed  ten  papers. 
He  also  contributed  a  series  of  articles  to  the  Ricgclsvillc  News 

1  See  paper  on  "Our  Local  Flora,"  by  John  A.  Ruth,  in  this  volume,  page  222. 


278  BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICE  OF  JOHN  A.  RUTH 

which  he  signed  with  his  penname  of  "Antiquary."  Copies  of 
these  papers,  mostly  on  the  history  of  Durham  and  vicinity,  are 
in  my  possession,  and  I  am  promising  myself  the  pleasure  of 
having  them  printed  in  book  form  for  preservation  and  for  distri- 
bution among  his  friends.  While  at  times  he  may  have  arrived 
at  wrong  conclusions,  the  errors  he  fell  into  must  be  quite  few  in- 
deed, and  I  long  ago  learned  to  place  confidence  in  articles  that 
came  from  his  pen. 

Mr.  Ruth  was  a  close  student,  careful  and  honest.  One  won- 
ders how  he  could  accomplish  so  much  with  the  limited  facilities 
at  his  command.  After  he  moved  to  Bethlehem  however  his 
notes  show  that  he  used  the  library  of  the  Lehigh  University.  Be- 
sides the  historical  articles,  to  which  I  have  referred,  he  left  many 
loose  sheets  and  memorandum  books  containing  genealogical  and 
historical  notes  and  copies  of  church  records.  Many  of  these 
have  already  found  their  way  into  the  archives  of  our  society. 
I  must  not  forget  to  mention  his  scrap  books,  filled  with  valuable 
clippings,  which  I  have  had  bound  in  nine  large  volumes.  These 
will  in  due  time  also  find  a  resting  place  in  the  library  of  the 
Bucks  County  Historical  Societ}^.  A  careful  index  or  rather  a 
table  of  contents,  of  these  scrap  books,  has  been  prepared  and 
bound  in  with  the  first  volume. 

I  will  close  this  paper  by  quoting  from  Mr.  Ruth's  autobiog- 
raphy to  show  what  he  says  about  the  aftermath  of  the  Civil  War: 

"I  was  too  young  to  recollect  much  in  reference  to  the  Civil  War. 
At  its  close,  when  I  was  six  years  old,  I  occasionally  saw  soldiers  on 
their  way  home  from  the  army.  Of  such  I  recollect  John  O'Daniel, 
who  served  in  the  104th  Reg.  Pa.  Volunteers,  under  Col.  W.  W.  H. 
Davis.  The  martial  spirit  of  those  days  extended  even  to  school  boys, 
for  I  remember  seeing  them  play  soldier.  When  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  assassinated  the  Methodist  congregation  at  Springtown  held  memo- 
ial  services,  which  my  mother  attended.  During  the  years  immediately 
succeeding  the  rebellion,  bands  of  southern  negroes  traveled  through 
our  section.  Just  freed  from  the  burden  of  slavery,  many  of  them  were 
ill-fitted  to  make  a  proper  use  of  their  newly  acquired  freedom,  and 
wandered  aimlessly  about  picking  up  a  scanty  subsistence  cleaning 
chimneys,  begging,  etc.  Some  of  them  still  bore  on  their  backs  the 
scars  of  the  slave-driver's  whip.  These  wandering  bands  often  num- 
bered as  high  as  thirty  or  forty  persons.  They  were  of  both  sexes 
and  all  ages.  They  were  usually  fine  singers  and  in  the  evenings  the 
country  people  would  assemble  around  their  camp-fires  to  hear  them 
sing  their  plantation  melodies." 


Shad  Fishing  in  the  Delaware  River. 

BY  HORACE   M.    MANX,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
Ci'ohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  9,  1920.) 

MR.  WILLIAM  LEWIS,  an  old-time  fisherman,  who  has 
been  engaged  in  shad  fishing  for  more  than  thirty-five 
years,  operating  at  several  dififerent  fisheries  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  New  Hope  in  Bucks  county,  has  furnished  me  with  a 
memorandum  of  the  shad  taken  for  thirty-one  years  from  1890 
to  1920  inclusive.  From  1890  to  1895  there  were  four,  and  from 
1896  to  1920  five  fisheries  contained  in  his  estimates.  These  sta- 
tistics are  of  such  value  that  I  have  tabulated  them  for  this  pub- 
lication, m  order  that  they  may  be  preserved,  as  follows : 

STATISTICS    SHOWING    NUMBER   OF    SHAD    CAUGHT   AND    PRICES 

OBTAINED. 

(From  memorandum   furnished  by   William   Lewis,   New   Hope.) 


Season  of 

Caught 
Shad 

Season  of 

Caught 
Shad 

Season  of 

Caught 
Shad 

1890 

14,000 

1901 

11,000 

1911 

14,000 

1891 

10,000 

1902 

7,500 

1912 

20,000 

1892 

7,200 

1903 

9,500 

1913 

19,000 

1893 

4,800 

1904 

8,000 

1914 

8,000 

1894 

6,400 

1905 

7,000 

1915 

1,500 

1895 

16,000 

1906 

6,500 

1916 

3,500 

1896 

40,000 

1907 

8,500 

1917 

4,500 

1897 

12,500 

1908 

7,000 

1918 

2,000 

1898 

10,000 

1909 

15.000 

1919 

1,750 

1899 

9,000 

1910 

17,500 

1920 

2,250 

1900 

10,000 

Total  estimated  catch  for  31  years     313,900 

Highest 

catch,  1896 

.       40,000 

Lowest  catch,  1915  . 

1,500 

Average 

catch  over  . 

31 

years  . 

.       10,126 

MEMORANDUM 

TO  SHOW   ] 

PRICES  RECEIVED  FOR 

SHAD. 

Retail 

in 

cents 

"Wholesale  per  hundred 

1870 

to  1894 

40 

$30  to 

$35 

1895 

40 

15  to 

30 

1896 

30 

to 

40 

7  to 

30 

1897 

to  1899 

40 

15  to 

35 

1900 

to  1909 

40 

to 

50 

25  to 

30 

280  SHAD  FISHING  ON  THE  DELAWARE  RIVER 

Shad  caught  and  sold  at  Green  Bank  and  Malta  Fisheries. 
1910     5,923  for  $2,692.83    or    .45  each 

1912  5,749  for     2,398.65    or    .42  each 

1913  4,972  for     2,348.65    or    .47  each 
1920        773  for     1,527.50  or  $1.98  each 

Mr.  Lewis  says  that  the  height  of  the  industry  was  reached 
about  1870,  after  which  there  was  a  marked  falling  off.  He 
attributes  this  to  the  pollution  of  the  Delaware,  which  is  certainly 
one  of  the  principal  causes  for  the  condition  he  describes,  but  his 
statistics  show  such  great  variations  from  year  to  year,  that  one 
must  necessarily  believe  that  the  pollution  of  the  stream  is  not 
the  only  cause  for  less  shad,  e.  g.,  a  catch  of  40,000  in  1896  and 
of  20,000  in  1912.  His  table,  however,  shows  that  but  very  few 
were  taken  over  the  last  five  years  under  review.  He  says  he 
made  his  largest  single  haul  on  Monday,  May  4,  1896,  when  at 
the  Liberty  Fishery,  Lambertville  (opposite  New  Hope),  he  took 
355  shad;  and  on  the  following  Monday,  May  11,  they  made  their 
largest  daily  catch,  taking  1,726  shad.  During  the  week  ending 
April  30,  1910,  while  operating  the  Malta  fishery  at  New  Hope, 
he  made  his  largest  weekly  catch,  viz :  3,250  shad  which  sold  for 
a  total  of  $1,429.61,  an  average  of  about  44  cents  each. 

In  the  splendid  paper  by  Dr.  J-  Ernest  Scott,  read  before  the 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  July  21,  1908,  he  so  fully  de- 
scribes this  industry  and  the  modes  of  taking  shad,  that  it  is  only 
necessary  for  me  to  refer  you  to  that  paper,  published,  with  illus- 
trations, in  Vol.  3,  page  543,  of  our  transactions. 

In  early  years  shad  not  only  went  up  the  Delaware  river,  but 
also  entered  some  of  the  larger  streams  tributary  thereto.  There 
are  no  records  to  show  when  shad  were  first  taken  from  the  Dela- 
ware river,  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  aboriginies  who  in- 
habited this  country,  long  before  the  advent  of  the  white  man,  well 
knew  and  appreciated  the  value  of  this  unsurpassed  food  fish,  just 
as  the  heaps  of  shells  along  the  Atlantic  coast  testify  to  their  large 
use  of  our  Crustacea. 

As  early  as  1698,  Gabriel  Thomas,  in  his  report  to  William 
Penn,  invites  his  attention  to  the  "shads"  in  the  waters  of  the 
Delaware  river  abounding  in  prodiguous  quantities.^ 

1  See  "An  Historical  and  Geographical  Account  of  the  Province  and 
Country  of  Pennsylvania  and  of  West  New  Jersey  in  America,"  p.  13. 


SHAD  FISHING  ON  THE  DELAWARE  RIVER  281 

Hazard's  Register  of  Pennsylvania  contains  many  notes  relat- 
ing to  shad  fishing  in  our  Pennsylvania  streams.  In  1802  they 
made  their  appearance  in  this  market  as  early  as  February  17. 
In  1828  he  speaks  of  two  shad  taken  at  Slack's  Island,  five  miles 
above  Trenton,  weighing  between  eight  and  nine  pounds  each.  In 
1832  shad  sold  at  33  cents  each.  From  Vol.  3,  at  page  214,  of 
the  publication  referred  to,  we  learn  that  in  1818  the  legislature 
of  New  Jersey  appointed  a  committee  to  investigate  the  shad 
fisheries  on  the  Delaware,  having  under  consideration  the  passing 
of  a  law  to  restrict  shad  fishing.  There  were  then  seventy  fish- 
eries on  both  sides  of  the  river  below  Trenton  Falls,  employing 
1,336  men,  whose  wages  for  the  short  season  were  $80,160.  with 
apparatus  costing  $82,800.  and  in  1829  there  were  forty  fisheries 
within  the  limits  of  Gloucester  county.  N.  J.,  on  the  Delaware, 
which  employed  900  men  with  wages  for  the  season  amounting 
to  $20,000. 

An  old  account  book  of  Martin  Mull,  who  owned  a  shad  fish- 
ery at  Penn's  Point,  nearly  opposite  Bordentown,  containing 
entries  for  the  year  1844,  records  that  the  first  catch  that  season 
was  on  April  1,  that  during  that  month  the  catch  was  995  shad. 
One  haul  containing  87  shad  sold  for  $12.18.  During  May  of 
that  year  they  caught  over  1,000.  One  entry  records  the  sale  of 
258  shad  for  $41.38. 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  place  dams  in  the  Dalaware 
river,  but  the  shad  fishing  industry  has  heretofore  been  of  such 
importance,  that  no  legislature  dare  to  antagonize  it  and  authorize 
dams.  There  was  considerable  opposition  to  the  construction  of 
the  low  rip-rap  stone  dam  near  Point  Pleasant,  used  to  divert 
water  into  the  feeder  of  the  Raritan  canal,  and  much  lobbying  and 
intriguing  to  raise  the  dam  of  the  Trenton  Water  Power  Com- 
pany at  Scudder's  Falls,  but  the  opposition  of  the  shad  fishing  in- 
dustry prevented  it,  in  fact  they  objected  to  having  the  stones 
put  back  on  the  parapet,  which  had  been  washed  off  by  the  floods. 

The  congress  of  the  United  States,  through  its  deep  water- 
way commission,  is  now  discussing  the  question  of  a  deeper 
water-way  in  the  Delaware  river,  to  include  slack  water  naviga- 
tion. This  would  necessitate  the  building  of  dams,  and  public 
sentiment  has  undergone  so  much  change  that  one  hears  but  very 
little  objection  to  their  plans.     Several  companies  have  purchased 


282  GROWING,  TREATING  AND  DRYING   FLAX. 

riparian  rights  with  the  view  of  building  dams  in  the  Delaware 
river.  Xow  that  the  shad  industry  has  practically  passed,  and 
seems  of  less  importance  than  formerly,  such  dams  are  likely  to 
be  built  in  the  near  future,  and  the  waters  harnessed  to  turn  the 
wheels  of  manufacturing  industries,  and  that  would  in  all  prob- 
ability forever  destroy  the  few  shad  fisheries  that  are  left  on  the 
Delaware  above  tide.  Since  the  advent  of  electricity,  our  inland 
streams,  such  as  the  Delaware  river,  are  of  the  greatest  value, 
and  will  become  even  more  so  as  the  mining  of  coal  becomes 
more  costly,  or  the  mines  become  more  or  less  exhausted.  The 
fall  in  the  Delaware  river  from  Easton  to  Trenton  Falls,  according 
to  a  survey  contained  in  Hazard's  Register  (Vol.  I,  page  57),  in  a 
distance  of  49  miles  is  160  feet  5  inches,  and  the  fall  above  Easton 
is  even  greater,  one  falls  alone,  that  at  Foul  Rift  below  Belvidere 
is  22  feet. 


Grow^ing,  Treating  and  Drying  Flax. 

BY  ELIJAH  R.  CASE,  C.E.,  M.S.,  FRENCHTOWN,  N.  J. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting-,  October  9,  1920.) 

THE  following  information  was  given  to  Dr.  Mercer  by  Mr. 
Case  at  the  Tohickon  Park  meeting,  following  the  reading 
and  discussion  of  the  paper  on  "Wool  Combing  by  Hand", 
presented  by  Mr.  Montague. 

When  I  was  a  lad  of  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  years  old  (1862 
to  1864),  attending  school  in  Alexandria  township,  Hunterdon 
county,  N.  J.,  I  passed  by  the  farm  of  Samuel  S.  Shuster  and 
took  notice  of  the  operations  of  cultivating  flax  and  its  subsequent 
treatment,  to  prepare  it  for  spinning.  In  fact  I  helped  to  pull 
flax  on  that  farm,  which  was  later  acquired  by  me.  The  flax 
was  pulled  before  it  was  dead  ripe,  as  flax  in  that  condition  was 
softer  on  the  hands.  The  pullers  tied  it  together  in  small 
"hands"  or  bunches  which  they  shocked  in  about  the  same  man- 
ner that  wheat  is  shocked.  About  twelve  bunches  formed  one 
shock.  They  were  placed  on  ends,  which  enabled  the  seed,  exposed 
to  the  sun  to  ripen.  When  thoroughly  dried  it  was  taken  to  the 
barn  where  it  was  forcibly  struck  on  a  large  rough  stone  or  plank 


GROWING,  TREATING  AND  DRYING   FLAX 


283 


set  at  an  angle  of  about  thirty  degrees,  when  nearly  all  the  bolls 
and  seed  came  otT.  Most  of  the  farmers  then  ran  the  bolls  through 
clover  hullers,  but  some  of  them  threshed  their  flax  stalks  with 
mallets  and  stampers  to  recover  the  seed.  The  seed  was  then 
ground  and  the  linseed  or  flaxseed  oil  recovered,  and  the  "cake 
meal",  used  for  feeding  cattle.  This  was  done  at  the  local  old  mill. 
On  the  Shuster  farm  referred  to,  there  was  an  oven  for  dry- 
ing or  roasting  flax  after  dew  retting  and  before  breaking.     This 


Remains  of  stone-built  part  of  flax  oven  on  farm  of  Elijah  R.   Case. 

oven  consisted  of  a  horizontal  flue  built  on  an  upward  incline 
against  the  side  of  a  bank.  This  flue  about  fifteen  or  more  feet 
long  and  about  eighteen  inches  wide  by  twelve  inches  high,  con- 
sisted of  two  parallel  loose  stone  walls  roofed  over  with  flat 
stones  made  tight  by  covering  it  with  earth.  The  upper  or  farther 
end  of  the  flue  entered  a  wooden  box  or  frame  about  six  feet 
long,  with  a  rectangular  opening  about  two  and  one-half  feet  by 
four  feet  on  the  inside.  On  the  inner  rim  of  this  flue,  about 
eight  inches  below  the  top,  several  staves  or  poles  were  laid,  on 
which  the  flax,   after  having  been   dew   retted,   was  placed    for 


284  WOOL    COMBING    BY    HAND 

roasting  or  dr^'ing.  The  smoke  and  heat,  minus  the  sparks,  of  a 
mild  wood  fire  built  at  the  lower  end  of  the  stone  oven,  passed  up 
through  the  latter  into  the  box  under  the  flax  and  so  dried  it. 
It  required  but  fifteen  minutes  to  dry  each  lot  placed  in  the 
dryer.  It  was  removed  from  the  box  as  fast  as  dried  and  im- 
mediately broken  on  the  flax  brake  standing  near  by,  fresh  flax 
was  then  placed  in  the  box,  thus  making  the  operation  continu- 
ous.   The  stone  part  of  this  old  drying  kiln  remains. 


Wool  Combing  By  Hand 

BY   WILLIAM    B.    MONTAGUE,    NORRISTOWN,    PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  9,  1920.) 

THE  rearing  of  sheep  dates  back  to  the  earliest  times,  and 
we  find  many  passages  in  the  Bible,  which  refer  to  sheep, 
wool  and  woolen  garments,  but  nowhere  do  we  find  much 
information  as  to  how  and  when  man  first  made  wool  useful  to 
himself. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  use  of  wool  and  particularly  the 
method  of  manipulating  it,  passed  in  succeeding  steps  through 
the  hands  of  the  Egyptians,  Greeks  and  the  Romans,  and  thence 
to  England,  and  it  is  from  the  English  who  immigrated  to 
America  that  we  are  able  to  learn  of  the  primitive  methods 
used  in  our  own  country  prior  to  the  introduction  of  machinery 
for  combing.  There  was,  no  doubt,  much  hand  carding  done  in 
the  early  days  in  the  preparation  of  wool  for  woolen  fabrics 
and  also  hand  combing  done  by  the  individual  families  who 
scoured,  combed  and  spun  their  own  wool  by  hand  and  either 
wove  or  had  woven  for  them,  the  cloth  for  their  own  domestic 
use,  but  the  first  hand  combed  worsted  yarn  made  commercially 
in  this  part  of  our  country,  I  believe  was  made  by  Moses  Hay 
who  was  born  in  Keighley,  England,  in  1792,  and  came  to 
America  in  1816.  After  a  few  years  spent  in  endeavoring  to 
perfect  some  machinery,  he  established  a  small  worsted  plant  in 
Dedham,  Mass.,  which  proved  to  be  unsuccessful,  and  in  1822, 


WOOL    COMBING    BY    HAND  285 

he  started  for  himself,  a  little  plant  in  Manayunk,  Pa.,  and  this 
is,  no  doubt,  the  start  of  the  manufacture  of  commercial  hand 
combed  worsted  yarn  in  this  locality.  Meeting  with  success, 
Mr.  Hay  established  a  larger  plant  on  Darby  creek,  the  place 
then  being  known  as  "Hay  bank",  Springfield  township,  Dela- 
ware county,  Pa.  Among  his  hand  combers  was  one  Richard 
Dawson,  who  came  to  America  in  1844,  and  from  whose  brother, 
William  Dawson,  now  living,  aged  89,  we  learn  of  Richard's 
combing  wool  to  be  used  for  epaulettes  on  the  officer's  uniforms 
w^orn  in  the   Mexican   War. 

Mr.  Samuel  Yewdell  came  from  England  in  1844  and  worked 
for  Mr.  Hay  at  his  Hay  Bank  mill,  and  early  in  1846  he  started 
in  business  for  himself  in  Philadelphia,  in  a  district  called 
Blockley,  now  54th  and  Poplar  streets,  and  in  1847  his  brother, 
John  Yewdell,  came  to  America  to  work  for  Samuel,  and  in 
1860  he  started  in  business  for  himself  in  the  Keystone  mill  at 
25th  and  Hamilton  streets.  The  old  mill  was  lately  razed  to 
make  room  for  the  Parkway. 

Another  of  the  early  hand-combers  was  John  Dawson,  father 
of  Richard,  who  came  here  in  1853  to  work  for  Samuel  Yewdell. 

Mr.  John  Yewdell  is  the  man  who,  with  the  introduction  of 
machinery,  saw  the  extermination  of  the  wool-comber's  art,  and 
desiring  that  the  memory  and  traditions  be  preserved,  had  this 
set  of  pictures  prepared,  showing  the  complete  process  from  mak- 
ing the  soap  to  the  finished  top.  These  pictures  are  now  the 
property  of  this  society,  and  we  are  deeply  indebted  for  them  to 
Mr.  George  Fiss,  a  pioneer  in  the  wool  business,  and  from  whose 
personal  note  book,  we  received  much  of  our  information.  Mr. 
Fiss  was  early  identified  with  the  worsted  business  and  his  per- 
sonal notations  on  the  same  are  among  his  greatest  treasures. 

The  wool,  which  you  see  here  in  its  original  condition,  was 
first  sorted  and  graded  into  various  lengths  and  finenesses,  keep- 
ing in  mind  all  the  while,  the  various  numbers  of  yarn,  into  which 
it  might  ultimately  be  spun.  This  work  was  done  by  wool  sorters, 
who  served  long  apprenticeship  before  being  finally  adjudged 
competent.  William  Dawson,  referred  to  above,  who  was  the 
son  of  John  and  the  brother  of  Richard,  remembers  very  dis- 
tinctly serving  seven  years  as  an  apprentice.  After  proper  sort- 
ting,  this  wool  was  weighed  out  to  the  combers  in  the  district. 


286  WOOL    COMBING    BY    HAND 

who  were  also  supplied  with  the  soap  for  scouring,  the  charcoal 
for  the  comber's  pot  and  the  oil.  The  mill  also  supplied  the 
combs  as  various  pitches  of  combs  were  necessary  for  the  various 
finenesses  of  wool. 

We  learn  from  Mr.  Benjamin  Smith,  an  old  comber,  now  86 
years  of  age,  living  in  Tacony,  that  these  combers  came  from  as 
great  a  distance  as  eight  or  ten  miles,  and  used  a  donkey  and 
cart  as  a  means  of  transportation. 

The  combs  given  out  varied  from  those  with  two  rows  of 
teeth  or  "broches"  for  coarse  wool,  to  those  with  six  rows  of 
"broches"  for  the  finest.  The  comber  first  scoured  the  wool  in 
a  large  iron  bowl,  thirty-six  or  forty  inches  in  diameter,  using 
the  soap,  supplied  by  the  mill,  and  sopping  the  wool  up  and  down 
in  the  warm  suds  with  his  hands  or  a  stick  until  the  yellow  gummy 
like  substance,  which  was  the  natural  oil  from  the  sheep  and 
which  was  called  "yolk",  as  well  as  the  dirt,  was  thoroughly  dis- 
solved and  washed  out.  It  was  wrung  out  in  a  very  simple  but 
unique  method.  Handful  after  handful  was  twisted  together 
into  sort  of  an  endless  rope,  and  one  loop  thrown  over  a  station- 
ary hook  fastened  in  the  wall,  while  the  other  loop  was  thrown 
over  a  hook  fastened  in  the  end  of  a  wooden  roller  suspended 
above  the  bowl.  The  wooden  roller  was  then  turned  round  and 
round  by  means  of  a  lever  on  the  end  and  a  twist  put  into  the 
woolen  rope,  which  left  little  room  for  water.  This  operation 
was  very  similar  to  a  woman  wringing  the  water  out  of  clothes 
by  hand.  It  was  then  straightened  out  into  little  piles  on  a  bench 
along  side  of  the  comber,  either  by  the  children  of  the  house- 
hold or  by  boys  hired  for  the  purpose  or  apprenticed  to  the 
comber.  This  process  was  called  "making  up"  and  during  the 
process  of  making  up,  the  wool  was  lightly  sprinkled  with  olive 
oil,  or  as  it  was  then  called  "Oil  of  Seville".  Here  is  where 
the  comber's  art  really  started.  Taking  up  the  small  piles  of  wool, 
prepared  by  the  children,  he  lashed  them  unto  his  comb,  which 
previously  fastened  to  a  post  with  the  broches  or  teeth  end  of  the 
comb  towards  himself.  He  used  an  overhand  motion,  much  after 
the  manner  of  hackling  flax  or  using  the  flail.  After  filling  both 
combs  to  his  satisfaction,  the  broches  were  thrust  into  the  comb- 
er's pot  for  warming,  the  wool  working  much  better  when  warm 
than  when  cold.     These   comber's   pots   varied   in   construction. 


WOOL    COMBING    BY    HAND  287 

The  earliest  one,  as  far  as  we  can  learn,  was  made  of  common 
native  clay  about  three  to  four  inches  thick  and  about  two  feet  in 
diameter.  It  was  thirty-six  to  forty  inches  in  height  and  had  a 
hole  in  the  top.  for  which  in  some  instances,  there  was  an  iron 
cover,  and  at  other  times  a  clay  cover,  made  of  the  same  ma- 
terial of  which  the  pot  was  made.  The  pot  for  burning  char- 
coal, we  are  told,  had  a  bottom  and  no  draft  whatever  was  ad- 
mitted there.  It  was  the  practice  to  put  in  six  or  eight  inches  of 
charcoal  in  the  bottom  and  carry  hot  coals  from  the  fireplace, 
with  which  to  light  the  charcoal.  This  load  would  last  for  half 
a  day,  sufficient  air  to  support  combustion  being  admitted  to 
rough  the  comb  holes  and  by  the  occasional  lifting  of  the  lid. 

The  pot  for  burning  coal  was  similar  in  construction,  with  but 
three  exceptions.  First,  it  had  no  bottom.  Secondly,  six  or  eight 
inches  from  its  base,  it  had  an  iron  grate,  on  which  they  burned 
a  semi- bituminous  coal,  and  thirdly,  it  had  a  hole  in  the  side, 
near  the  top,  to  which  was  attached  a  stove  pipe.  The  coal 
burned  with  more  or  less  gas  or  smoke,  while  the  charcoal  was 
practically  free  from  both.  This  latter  pot  was  set  up  on  stones 
or  dirt  and  admitted  air  to  support  combustion  at  the  bottom. 
This  difference  in  pots,  was,  no  doubt,  due  to  local  conditions,  the 
coal  pot  being  used  nearer  the  mining  districts  and  the  charcoal 
pot  where  coal  was  not  so  accessible.  Both  pots  had  similar 
comb  holes.  These  were  placed  horizontally  in  the  sides  of  the 
pot  about  two  and  one-half  inches  from  the  top,  and  were  about 
two  and  one-half  by  five  inches  and  varied  in  number  from  four 
to  eight,  each  comber  using  two  holes.  Pots  were  made  for 
two,  three  or  four  combers. 

After  proper  heating  of  the  combs  loaded  with  wool,  they 
were  withdrawn  from  the  pot,  one  rehung  on  the  post  and  with 
the  other,  the  comber  proceeded  to  comb  out  the  long  fibres  from 
comb  to  comb,  alternating  his  combs  on  the  post  until  gradually 
all  the  short  fibres  or  noils  were  worked  to  the  base  of  the 
broches.  This  first  combing  process,  with  the  coarser  combs  was 
called  jugging. 

The  wool  was  then  pulled  from  the  combs  by  hand  by  the 
comber  into  a  "sliver",  care  being  used  to  keep  this  sliver  as 
near  to  a  size  as  possible.  These  slivers  were  rolled  up  into 
balls   called   "heads"   and   when   sufficient   wool   had   been   given 


288  WOOL    COMBING    BY    HAND 

this  first  combing  or  jigging  process,  the  heads  were  gathered  to- 
gether for  back-washing  or  re-scouring.  After  re-scouring  in  ex- 
actly the  same  manner  as  in  the  first  instance,  the  wool  was  re- 
combed  with  finer  combs,  this  time  there  being  very  much  less  of 
the  noils  to  be  taken  out.  The  wool  was  now  very  soft  and  lofty 
and  in  pulling  this  sliver,  much  more  care  was  used  in  keeping  it 
into  an  even  thickness,  usually  a  ring  of  bone  being  used  as  a 
measure  through  which  the  sliver  was  pulled.  In  the  subsequent 
operation  of  "doubling"  and  drawing,  the  sliver  was  gradually 
reduced  in  size  until  you  had  a  roving,  which  when  given  the 
proper  number  of  twists  or  turns  on  the  spinning  frame  produced 
a  yard  of  the  weight  and  thickness  desired. 

Various  attempts  were  made  to  produce  a  machine  to  shorten 
this  slow  method  of  hand  combing  and  as  early  as  1790,  we 
had  a  machine  comb  made  by  Arkright  in  England,  but  which 
proved  not  to  be  very  successful.  We  next  had  the  Eastman 
comb,  but  it  was  not  until  1849  or  1850  that  the  Lester  comb 
revolutionized  this  art.  Almost  human  in  its  action,  with  but 
one  fault.  It  combed  long  wools  admirably,  but  on  short  wools, 
which  were  the  native  wools  of  the  south  of  England,  there  was 
room  for  improvement.  Within  two  years  of  this  time,  the 
Noble  comb  was  invented  and  the  wool  combing  problem  was 
solved,  and  the  combing  of  wool  by  hand  was  destined  to  become 
a  lost  art  in  England  and  America.  The  Noble  comb  of  today 
will  comb  from  five  hundred  to  eight  hundred  pounds  daily,  de- 
pending on  the  fineness  and  the  length  of  staple  of  the  wool 
being  combed.    One  operator,  usually  a  woman,  minds  two  combs. 

In  England,  the  hand  comber  was  paid  for  his  work  from  two 
pence  a  pound  (four  cents)  to  four  pence  "but".  Four  pence 
"but"  meaning  that  he  did  not  get  quite  eight  cents  for  his  work, 
as  he  would  have  liked,  but  did  in  reality  receive  three  pence 
and  three  farthings  or  seven  and  one-half  cents  per  pound.  Dur- 
ing all  this  experimental  machine  stage,  the  slogan  of  the  hand 
comber  was  "They  will  never  be  able  to  do  by  machine  what  we 
now  do  by  hand".     How  mistaken  they  were ! 

Probably  the  first  power  comb  imported  into  this  country  was 
a  Lester,  brought  here  by  the  Pacific  Mills  of  Lawrence,  Mass., 
in  1853. 

For  the  information  we  have  today  on  this  lost  art,  we  are 


WOOL    COMBING    BY    HAND 


289 


greatly  indebted  to  Mr.  John  Yewdell  for  his  forethought  in  hav- 
ing these  pictures  prepared  and  to  the  following  gentlemen,  who 
are  yet  living:  Mr.  George  W.  Fiss,  an  old  time  wool  merchant, 
who  in  after  years  established  the  business  that  is  now  the  Er- 
ben,  Harding  Co.,  of  Tacony;  Mr.  William  Dawson,  aged  89,  a 
wool  sorted,  whose  father  and  brother  were  both  combers  in  Eng- 
land and  America;  Mr.  Benjamin  Smith,  aged  86,  who  also  fol- 
lowed this  trade  here  and  at  home,  and  Mr.  Robert  Sunderland, 
aged  65,  a  machinist  by  trade,  whose  father  and  grandfather  were 
both  combers  in  Bradford,  England. 


Octagonal  or  So-Called  "Eight-Square"  Schoolhouses. 

BY   WARREN   S.   ELY,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  9,  1920.) 

THERE  is  probably  no  subject  of  more  interest  to  the  local 
historian  than  the  problem  and  progress  of  public  education 
in  Pennsylvania. 

William  Penn  very  evidently  intended  that  public  schools  for 
the  education  of  children  should  be  established  in  his  colony  and 
supported  from  a  common  fund.  But  from  the  fact  that  jeal- 
ousies arose  between  the  different  sects  represented  in  the  first 
settlement  of  Bucks  county,  each  sect  preferring  to  educate  its 
own  youth,  the  only  schools  established  for  the  first  three-quar- 
ters of  a  century  were  in  connection  with  the  churches  or  meet- 
ings for  religious  worship. 

About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  number  of  school- 
houses  were  erected  in  our  county  on  the  plan  of  subscriptions,  by 
families  residing  in  the  neighborhood  where  the  schools  were 
located,  the  funds  to  pay  for  them  and  their  sites  being  raised  by 
popular  subscriptions,  the  titles  in  each  instance  being  held  by 
three  or  five  trustees  selected  by  the  proprietors,  as  the  subscrib- 
ers were  generally  called.  Teachers  were  employed  by  the  trus- 
tees or  an  auxiliary  committee  and  were  paid,  usually,  pro-rata 
for  the  number  of  scholars  taught.  Some  few  were  established 
as  early  as  1735-40,  but  they  did  not  become  numerous  or  popular 
in  our  county  until  about  1760.  The  first  schoolhouses  were  con- 
structed of  logs,  or  of  frame  or  stone,  the  matter  of  material 
being  governed  by  their  location  and  the  amount  of  money  that 
could  be  collected  for  their  construction. 

The  same  condition  prevailed  in  adjoining  counties  and  states. 
In  Hunterdon  county,  New  Jersey,  the  first  houses  were  almost 
invariably  built  of  logs,  and  almost  as  universally  succeeded  in 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  by  stone  octagonal  school- 
houses.  In  our  own  county  the  octagonal  schoolhovise  does  not 
appear  until  the  nineteenth  century,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the 
adjoining  counties  of  Pennsylvania,  the  state  of  Delaware,  and 
the  lower  river  counties  of  New  Jersey.    The  period  during  which 


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LiioLSii;,  BUILT  ABOUT  1835. 


Jirmingham  Township,  Delaware  County,  Pa. 
Now  used  as  a  Catholic  Mission  Chapel. 


OLD    EIGHT-SQUARE    SCHOOLHOUSE. 
Wrightstown  Township,  Bucks  County,  Pa. 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGIIT  SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES  291 

these  peculiarly  shaped  schoolhouses  were  built  lies  between 
1800  and  1840,  very  few  being  built  anywhere,  that  we  can  learn 
of,  earlier  than  1800,  and  none  after  1850. 

The  main  question  we  propose  to  discuss  in  this  paper  is  the 
origin  of  this  peculiar  building,  why  it  was  selected  for  the  use 
of  schools.  Certain  it  is  that  it  was  universally  popular  for  the 
particular  period  above  referred  to,  and  seems  to  belong  to  this 
particular  section  although  we  have  some  account  of  their  being 
erected  at  far  distant  points  from  Bucks  county.  In  these  cases, 
however,  there  is  a  strong  supposition  that  the  style  of  building 
was  introduced  in  these  distant  sections  by  emigrants  from  Bucks 
county  or  its  immediate  neighborhood. 

In  connection  with  Dr.  Mercer  we  have  had  investigations 
made  in  reference  to  the  existence  of  the  eight-square  buildings  in 
several  states.  We  succeeded  in  finding  one  near  Syracuse,  N. 
Y.,  an  account  of  which  and  other  buildings  of  the  same  type  in 
that  locality  will  be  given  later  in  this  paper. 

J.  F.  Hudson,  of  Smyrna,  Delaware,  a  recent  visitor  to  our 
museum,  told  us  of  an  eight-square  schoolhouse  located  near  the 
center  of  the  state  of  Delaware,  twelve  miles  south  of  Wilming- 
ton. Mr.  Hudson  was  born  within  eight  miles  of  that  school- 
house,  but  never  attended  school  there.  He,  however,  was  fa- 
miliar with  its  construction  and  insists  that  it  was  the  only  one 
in  that  section,  and  he  thinks  the  only  one  in  that  state.  It  was 
practically  of  the  same  type  as  to  size  and  form  as  those  we  are 
familiar  with  near  home,  but  was  built  of  wood,  having  a  window 
on  each  of  its  eight  sides  excepting  the  one  which  contained  the 
door.  The  apex  of  the  roof  was  surmounted  by  a  brick  chimney 
resting  on  the  joists  at  the  square. 

Our  first  impression  was  that  this  form  of  building  originated 
with  the  Quakers.  This  theory  was  in  a  measure  supported  by 
the  fact  that  the  first  meeting-house  of  the  Society  of  Friends  at 
Burlington,  N.  J.,  erected  in  1682,  was  hexagon  in  shape.  Our 
friend,  Thaddeus  S.  Kenderdine,  of  Newtown,  visited  Burling- 
ton several  years  ago  and  has  this  to  say  about  the  Burlington 
Meeting  and  Meeting-house : 

"  'Set  up'  in  1671,  this  was  one  of  the  oldest  meeting  places  for 
Friends  on  the  continuent,  preceding  Philadelphia.  There,  in  1682,  was 
built  the  'Great  Meetinghouse,'  private  houses  being  previously  used  for 
worship.     This  was  a  'six  square  building  48  feet  out  to  out.'     Of  this 


292 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED      EIGHT   SQUARE      SCHOOLHOUSES 


I  have  a  picture,  and  I  doubt  if  there  was  ever  such  another  Friends' 
meetinghouse  built.  A  hexagon  in  ground  plan,  there  were  large  double 
doors  next  the  street  and  two  windows  piercing  each  of  the  other  sides. 
Up  the  roof,  twenty  feet  from  the  ground,  sat  what  gave  the  building 
the  appearance  of  one  of  those  'steeple  houses'  which  so*  troubled  the 
minds  of  early  Friends.  This  was  a  sort  of  cupola,  which  rose  six  feet 
above  the  roof,  topped  with  a  blunt  peak,  with  windows  in  each  side. 
*  *  *  The  picture  is  copied  from  a  lithograph  which  must  have  been 
made  before  1790,  unless  drawn  from  descriptions.     Before   1691   courts 


FRIENDS  MEETING  HOUSE,   BURLINGTON,   N.   J. 

1682-1787. 


were  held  in  this  meetinghouse,  in  which  year  certain  Friends  made 
objection  thereto  through  the  monthly  meeting,  when  directions  were 
given  that  the  building  be  confined  to  its  special  use.  The  semblance 
of  it  may  have  justified  its  legal  occupation  by  the  law  officials  of 
Burlington  County.  It  stood  just  in  the  rear  of  its  successor,  and  was 
shaded  by  sycamores,  an  immense  specimen  of  which  is  yet  standing. 

The  present  meetinghouse  is  of  brick,  built  about  1785,  in  the  con- 
ventional style." 

So  far  as  we  can  learn  there  was  no  provision  made  for  heat- 
ing this  ancient  building,  and  in  the  absence  of  stoves,  unknown 
at  that  date,  it  could  not  be  heated  except  by  individual  foot 
stoves  carried  in  by  the  devotees,  as  in  the  old  churches  of  Hol- 
land. It  is  a  far  cry  from  1682  to  1802.  and  there  is  nothing  to 
suggest  a  connection  of  our  octagon  and  hexagon  schoolhouses  of 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED   "EIGHT   SQUARE"   SCIIOOLHOUSES  293 

the  nineteenth  century  with  this  seventeenth  century  house  of 
worship. 

Another  clue  came  from  a  man  who  drifted  into  our  hbrary 
and  told  me  that  the  first  Unitarian  Church  in  Philadelphia  was 
octagon  in  shape,  and  Dr.  Mercer  having  already  suggested  a 
possible  New  England  origin,  at  his  suggestion,  I  wrote  to  Wil- 
liam Summer  Appleton,  corresponding  secretary  of  the  Society 
for  the  Preservation  of  New  England  Antiquities,  at  Boston, 
Mass.,  who  replied  stating  that  he  had  never  heard  of  an  octa- 
gonal schoolhouse,  but  that  there  was  an  octagonal  church  at 
East  Lexington,  Mass.,  and  that  there  was  a  number  of  octagonal 
residences,  but  gave  me  no  dates. 

It  having  been  suggested  that  the  peculiar  form  of  building 
originated  with  the  Friends,  I  wrote  to  Kirk  Brown,  clerk  of 
Baltimore  Yearly  Meeting,  who  for  many  years  have  been  en- 
gaged as  a  genealogist  and  historian  and  had  traveled  over  the 
parts  of  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland  and 
Virginia,  settled  by  Friends,  and  examined  many  Friends  Meet- 
ing records  and  who  by  virtue  of  his  official  position  was  the 
custodian  of  records  of  widely  scattered  meetings  of  the  early 
days.  Through  these  mediums  he  was  probably  one  of  the  best 
informed  men  of  his  time  in  reference  to  habits  and  customs  of 
the  early  Friends.  Mr.  Brown  replied  that  he  had  never  seen  or 
heard  of  the  Friends  erecting  or  occupying  octagonal  buildings. 
As  we  progressed  in  our  investigation  in  reference  to  octagonal 
buildings,  we  have  become  convinced  that  they  originated  with 
the  Dutch. 

AN    OCTAGONAL   DUTCH    TRADING    POST    AT    TRENTON,    NEW    JERSEY. 

In  August,  1872,  George  Bernard  Consolloy,  in  excavating  for 
the  erection  of  buildings  at  738-744  South  Warren  street,  Tren- 
ton, N.  J.,  unearthed  the  foundation  walls  of  an  octagon  building 
about  sixty  feet  in  diameter.  The  foundation  walls  composed  of 
hard  gray  stone  were  laid  about  two  feet  thick  with  mortar 
running  six  feet  deep.  The  walls  had  four  openings,  each  about 
three  feet  wide  and  facing  to  the  north,  east,  south  and  west. 
On  the  sides  of  the  walls,  facing  the  Delaware  river,  there  was 
built  up  against  the  same  a  brick  wall  about  one  foot  thick  and 
four  feet  deep  of  hard  burnt  brick.     On  the  northwest  comer  of 


294 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT   SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES 


the  building  there  was  an  old  stone  and  brick  chimney  about  six 
feet  wide  and  six  feet  deep  from  the  surface  of  the  foundation. 
A  few  cannon  balls  were  found  in  the  ruins,  also  a  quantity  of 
cooking  utensils,  having  the  appearance  of  very  thick  stoneware, 
made  in  curious  shapes,  most  of  which  were  broken  in  fragments. 
Several  noted  archaeologists  and  historians  have  discussed  the 
matter,  among  them  Dr.  Charles  Conard  Abbott,  who  published 
an  article  in  the  Trenton  Sunday  Advertiser,  March  18,  1906. 
Dr.  Charles  E.  Godfrey  of  Trenton,  read  a  paper  before  the 
Trenton  Historical  Society.  March  20,  1919,  which  was  printed 
by  the  society  in  pamphlet  form,  and  reproduced  in  the  "Proceed- 
ings of  the  New  Jersey  Historical  Society,"  (New  Series,  Vol. 
V,  No.  4,  October,  1920),  discussing  the  probability  of  the 
building  being  the  remains  of  the  Dutch  Trading  Post,  erected 
by  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  in  1630,  and  destroyed  by 
the  Swedes  in  1646.  He  illustrates  the  paper  with  a  drawing 
of  the  ground  plan  of  the  building  and  discusses  its  construction 
and  history  at  some  length.     He  observes : 

"The  octagon  construction  of  buildings  was  an  exclusive  character- 
istic of  the  early  Dutch.  This  statement  cannot  be  successfully  con- 
troverted.    In  Holland  today  will  be  found  windmills  and  other  struc- 


DUTCH   TRADING  POST,   TRENTON,   N.   J. 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED   "EIGHT   SQUARE*'   SCIIOOLIIOUSES  295 

tures  which  were  built  centuries  ago  in  the  octagon  and  other  angular 
forms.  In  this  Colony  we  know  the  Dutch  built  the  octagon  stone 
church  in  1680,  at  Bergen,  now  part  of  Jersey  City.  *  *  *  The 
superstructure  was  evidently  built  of  logs,  otherwise  the  upper  surface 
of  the  foundation  excavated  would  not  have  been  level  and  flush.  *  * 
The  brick  wall  on  the  outside  facing  the  river  was  doubtless  built  to 
divert  the  dampness  and  the  cold  northwest  winds  in  winter  from  the 
crude  walls  of  the  foundation,  on  the  side  of  the  basement  in  which 
the  traders  undoubtedly  lived."  His  illustration  of  the  outline  of  the 
base  of  the  building  is  reproduced  herewith.  "The  transverse  walls 
were  built  to  support  the  great  weight  of  skins,  stores,  and  other  ma- 
terials stored  on  the  floor  above." 

Victor  H.  Paltists.  of  the  New  York  Public  Library,  possesses 
an  illustration  of  an  original  octagonal  building  which  was 
erected  by  the  Dutch,  near  Utrecht,  Long  Island,  at  an  early,  but 
unknown  date. 

Having  determined  that  the  octagonal  constructions  originated 
with  the  Dutch  does  not  account  for  the  appearance  of  these  octa- 
gonal schoolhouses  in  our  section  nearly  two  centuries  after  the 
Dutch  creations  had  practically  disappeared.  Several  historians 
and  others  with  whom  we  have  corresponded,  and  whose  descrip- 
tions of  these  old  eight-square  schoolhouses  we  have  read,  have 
suggested  that  the  occasion  for  building  a  schoolhouse  in  that 
form  was  that  the  scholars  could  be  kept  under  the  eye  of  the 
teacher  much  better  than  in  a  square  building,  and,  wath  the 
advent  of  stoves  with  a  pipe,  they  could  be  more  easily  and  eco- 
nominally  heated.  We  are  disposed  to  agree  wdth  them  and  have 
about  despaired  of  finding  the  individual  or  exact  community 
who  and  which  suggested  and  adopted  the  peculiar  form  of 
building,  just  at  the  period  when  the  six  plate  and  ten  plate  stove 
began  to  come  into  common  use.  We  believe,  however,  that  the 
place  where  its  use  originated  was  either  in  or  near  Bucks  county, 
where  we  have  found  at  least  nine  of  these  eight-square  school- 
houses  ranging  in  date  of  erection  from  1802  to  1833,  a  list  of 
which  is  given  below. 

We  have  an  account  of  two  octagonal  schoolhouses  in  Mont- 
gomery county,  one  at  Conshohocken,  and  one  at  Plymouth 
Meeting.  The  one  at  Conshohocken  was  still  standing  and  used 
as  a  schoolhouse  as  late  as  August  15,  1903,  when  a  reunion  of 
teachers  and  pupils  was  held  there.     A  rude  pencil  sketch  of  this 


296 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT   SQUARE      SCHOOLHOUSES 


schoolhouse  shows  a  sort  of  storm  door  or  vestibule  in  front  but 
otherwise  conforms  to  the  usual  type. 

Col.  Henry  D.  Paxson,  one  of  our  vice-presidents,  has  sent  me 
elaborate  drawings,  describing  an  octagonal  schoolhouse  at  New- 
ton Square,  Chester  county,  Pa.,  prepared  by  his  cousin,  Edward 
S.  Paxson,  an  architect  of  W^est  Chester,  copies  of  which  are 
shown  below. 


OCTAGONAL  SCHOOLHOUSE  AT  NEWTON  SQUARE, 
CHESTER  COUNTY,  PA. 

Note  that  all  the  desks  are  arranged  with  the  pupils  facing  the  center  of 
the  room. 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED      EIGHT   SQUARE      SCHOOLIIOUSES 


297 


F.  H.  Shelton  has  sent  me  cuts  of  two  octagonal  schoolhouses 
in  Delaware  county,  one  in  Newton  township,  built  about  1841. 
now  used  as  a  small  barn  or  wagon  house,  the  other  in  Burming- 
ham  township,  built  1835  to  1840,  now  used  as  a  Catholic  Mission 


i.   4 


Cu-TWe  ot  W.nAov 


OCTAGONAL   SCHOOLHOUSE   AT   NEWTON   SQUARE 
Outside    leng-th    of   each    side    approximately    12    feet,    inside    11    feet,    walls 
1   foot  thick.      Height  of  walls  inside   10   feet,  width   inside    25   feet   10   inches. 
W,    7  windows.      D,   door.      B-B,   blackboards. 

Chapel.  He  also  reports  having  seen  an  eight-square  school- 
house,  which  he  passed  while  on  a  summer  outing — "A  wooden 
one,  13  miles  southeast  of  Syracuse.  N.  Y.,  on  the  road  to 
Ithaca."  I  therefore  wrote  to  \V.  AI.  Beauchamp  at  Syracuse, 
his  reply  dated  September  23,  1920.  says: 


298  OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT   SQUARE"   SCIIOOLIIOUSES 

"Octagonal  schoolhouses  are  rare  here,  and  are  not  of  early 
date.  About  70  years  ago  there  came  a  slight  craze  for  that 
style  of  building,  and  a  very  few  dwelling  houses  of  that  shape 
were  erected.  Two  brick  schoolhouses  were  also  built.  I  can- 
not however  give  the  precise  years,  but  it  was  not  far  from  1850. 
Both  were  in  rural  districts.  One,  No.  4  of  Otisco.  is  about  a 
mile  south  of  Otisco  village,  the  other  No.  17  of  Skaneateles.  is 
about  the  same  distance  south  of  that  village,  I  can  think  of  no 
others.  Village  schoolhouses  were  usually  of  brick.  Rural  ones 
of  wood,  brick  or  stone,  often  of  the  latter  *  *  *  *  j  ^yju 
enclose  a  sketch  of  the  first  schoolhouse  in  Syracuse,  said  to 
have  been  built  in  1819,  or  probably  a  little  later.  This  style  of 
roof  was  frequently  used  in  dwelling  houses.  1830-40.  Pennsyl- 
vania people  were  rarely  pioneers  here." 

The  sketch  of  the  first  schoolhouse  in  Syracuse.  1819,  referred 
to  by  Mr.  Beauchamp,  is  that  of  a  square  building,  with  peaked 
room,  a  chimney  crowning  apex. 

OCTAGONAL    SCHOOLHOUSES    IN    NORTHAMPTON    COUNTY,    PA. 

Of  the  octagonal  schoolhouses  in  Northampton  county  we 
have  record  of  but  two.  One  of  them  described  by  John  R. 
Laubach  of  Nazareth  in  the  Pennsylvania-German  Maga:;ine  for 
November,  1907,  Vol.  VIII.  page  513,  which  stood  on  the  Bath 
road  in  Upper  Nazareth  township.  This  has  been  so  fully  re- 
ferred to  by  Alden  M.  Collins  in  his  paper  read  before  this  so- 
ciety that  it  is  only  necessary  to  draw  attention  to  that  valuable 
contribution  to  this  subject,  see  page  251  ante.  The  other  one 
was  located  in  the  village  of  Lower  Saucon.  in  Lower  Saucon 
township,  on  the  south  side  of  the  road  leading  from  Hellertown 
to  Riegelsville.  After  it  was  abandoned  for  school  purposes  it 
was  for  years  used  as  a  chicken  house.  I  am  told  by  Dr.  B.  F. 
Fackenthal,  Jr.,  that  his  grandmother,  Fackenthal,  nee  Illick  and 
Mrs.  Fackenthal's  grandmother,  Riegel,  nee  Leidy,  attended 
school  together  in  that  old  house.  We  are  fortunate  in  being 
able  to  present  an  etching  of  this  old  building  from  a  photograph 
taken  in  1902. 

OCTAGONAL   SCHOOLHOUSES   IN   BERKS   COUNTY. 

The  Pennsylvania-German,  for  November,  1907.  already  re- 
ferred to,  also   contains  an   interesting  article   on   an   octagonal 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED   "EIGHT   SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES  299 

schoolhouse  in  Berks  county,  written  by  the  then  county  school 
superintendent,  E.  M.  Rapp  of  Hamburg,  Pa.  This  is  also  re- 
ferred to  by  Mr.  Collins,  but  the  description  given  by  Mr.  Rapp 
is  so  interesting  that  it  has  been  thought  best  to  quote  more  fully 
from  it.  It  was  still  standing  in  1907  when  the  article  was 
published.  Its  location  was  at  the  eastern  end  of  the  village  of 
Sinking  Spring,  near  a  recently  abandoned  tollgate  on  the  Har- 
risburg  pike,  and  is  said  to  be  the  only  building  of  its  kind  in 
that  county.  It  was  abandoned  as  a  schoolhouse  over  fifty 
years  ago,  and  then  used  as  a  dwelling  house.  The  author  says 
the  outside  is  the  same  as  when  constructed,  except  for  a  porch 
in  front,  an  addition  on  the  east  and  a  dormer  window.  The 
inside  still  contains  the  umbrella-like  rafters.  The  author  fails 
to  give  the  date  of  its  erection,  but  gives  the  impression  that  it 
was  built  immediately  after  the  Revolutionary  War.  His  state- 
ment on  this  subject  follows: 

"The  immediate  predecessor  of  the  octagonal  schoolhouse  in  country 
districts  during  the  Colonial  times  was  the  log  schoolhouse  with  a 
rough  puncheon  floor  or  a  dirt  floor.  During  and  immediately  after  the 
Revolutionary  War  the  rough  log  cabin  was  replaced,  in  the  Aliddle 
States,  by  a  better  schoolhouse  of  the  octagonal  shape,  so  much  in 
favor  for  meetinghouses  as  well  as  for  school  purposes.  In  Eastern 
Pennsylvania  these  octagonal  schoolhouses  were  nearly  always  built  of 
stone,  like  the  one  we  have  just  described.  The  interior  furnishings  of 
this  schoolhouse  were  very  meager.  Against  the  walls  all  around  the 
room  was  built  a  continuous  sloping  shelf,  about  three  feet  from  the 
floor,  serving  the  purpose  of  a  desk.  Long  backless  benches  accom- 
panied it,  on  which  the  older  pupils  sat  facing  the  wall.  While  they 
were  studying  they  leaned  against  the  edge  of  the  shelf,  and  when 
they  wrote  or  ciphered  they  rested  their  exercise-books  and  slates  on  it. 
Under  it,  on  a  horizontal  shelf,  that  was  somewhat  narrower  than  the 
upper  one,  the  pupils  kept  their  books  and  other  school  belongings 
when  not  in  use.  A  table  was  placed  in  the  middle  or  near  the  middle 
of  the  room,  with  lower  benches  on  each  side  of  it  for  the  smaller  chil- 
dren. The  number  of  children  the  schoolhouse  would  hold  depended  on 
how  closely  they  could  be  packed  on  the  benches.  The  enrollment  in 
mid-winter  numbered  between  seventy  and  eighty.  The  children  in  the 
old-time  families  were  more  numerous  than  now;  "race-suicide"  was 
unknown  and  the  farm  regions  had  not  yet  begun  to  be  depopulated  by 
the  cityward  migration  destined  to  drain  them  later.  But  no  matter 
how  many  pupils,  there  was  never  any  thought  of  providing  more  than 
a  single  teacher. 

The  master's  desk  was  placed  at  the  north  end  of  the  building,  op- 
posite the  entrance,  but  inside  the  circle  of  shelving  which  served  as  a 


300  OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED   "eIGHT   SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES 

continuous  desk.  Besides  serving  the  ordinary  purposes  of  a  desk,  it 
was  repository  for  confiscated  tops,  balls,  pen-knives,  marbles,  jew's- 
harps  and  the  like,  and  was  frequently  a  perfect  curiosity  shop.  All 
seats  and  desks  were  of  pine  or  oak,  rudely  fashioned  by  some  local 
carpenter.  Their  aspect  was  not  improved  by  the  passing  years;  the 
unpainted  wood  became  more  browned  with  the  number  of  human  con- 
tacts and  every  possessor  of  a  pen-knife  labored  over  them  with  much 
idle  hacking  and  carving.  This  old-time  schoolhouse  must  have  been 
somewhat  up-to-date,  as  a  wooden  blackboard  four  feet  square  was 
hung  against  the  wall  opposite  the  entrance:  but  in  order  to  use  it  the 
children  were  obliged  to  crawl  with  their  knees  on  the  sloping  shelving 
used  as  desks. 

A  cast-iron  wood  stove  occupied  the  middle  of  the  room  and  nearly 
roasted  the  little  ones,  who  occupied  the  seats  around  the  table  nearby. 
The  wood  was  usually  furnished  free  of  charge  by  the  parents.  It  was 
cut  into  stove  lengths  by  the  older  boys.  In  a  school  of  seventy  or 
eighty  pupils  there  were  a  score  of  j^oung  men  and  women  practically 
grown-up.  The  young  men  took  turns  in  'chopping'  and  in  pleasant 
weather  preferred  the  change  to  the  school  routine.  The  wood  was  oft- 
times  burned  green;  no  one  thought  of  getting  school  wood  ready  long 
enough  beforehand  to  allow  it  to  season.  When  it  was  delivered  in  the 
schoolyard,  it  lay  there  exposed,  and  it  was  often  wet  with  rain  and 
buried  in  the  snow.  In  summer  the  place  of  the  woodpile  was  marked 
by  scattered  chips  and  refuse.  Woodsheds  and  even  other  necessarj^ 
outbuildings  were  conspicuous  for  their  absence.  At  times  several  of 
the  boys  earned  their  tuition  by  cutting  wood  a  certain  period  and  at- 
tending to  the  fire. 

The  tuition  amounted  to  three  cents  a  day  and  where  parents  were 
too  poor  the  most  well-to-do  often  volunteered  to  pay  the  tuition  of  the 
children  of  their  less  fortunate  neighbors.  The  school  room  walls  were 
most  dismally  vacant  except  for  weather-stains  and  the  grime  from  the 
fire.  The  school  room  was  lighted  by  six  small  windows  of  twelve 
panes  each.  The  glass  in  the  windows  was  often  broken  and  in  cool 
weather  the  place  of  the  missing  panes  was  supplied  with  hats  during 
the  school  hours." 

About  the  books  and  making  of  pens,  Mr.  Rapp  has  the  fol- 
lowing to  say : 

"For  each  writer  the  master  set  a  copy  at  the  top  of  the  pupil's 
copying  book.  The  writing  book  was  usually  made  of  sheets  of  fools- 
cap paper,  with  a  brown  paper  cover  sewed  on.  The  writing  was  done 
with  a  quill  pen,  and  the  experienced  teacher  always  took  great  pride 
in  his  ability  to  make  and  mend  pens." 

His  description  of  the  process  of  making  pens  is  so  full  and 
clear  that  we  copy  it  in  full : 

"Richard  B.  Krick  is  still  quite  a  genius  in  making  a  pen  and  showed 
the   writer   minutely  how   to  make  one.      A   sharp   pen-knife   is   needed. 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT  SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES  301 

The  new  quill  must  be  scraped  on  the  outside  to  remove  the  thin  film, 
a  sort  of  cuticle  which  enveloped  the  quill  proper.  One  dexterous  stroke 
cut  off  what  was  to  become  the  under  side  of  the  pen.  A  single  mo- 
tion of  the  knife  made  the  slit.  Two  quick  strokes  removed  the  two 
upper  corners,  leaving  the  point.  Then  came  the  most  delicate  part  of 
the  mechanical  process.  The  point  of  the  pen  was  placed  on  the  thumb 
nail  of  the  left  hand.  The  knife  was  deftly  guided  so  as  to  cut  off 
the  extreme  end  of  the  pen  directly  across  the  slit,  leaving  a  smooth 
end,  not  too  blunt  so  as  to  make  too  large  a  mark,  and  not  too  fine  so 
as  to  scratch." 

The  author  gives  some  account  of  the  early  teachers,  the  old- 
time  school  discipline,  and  the  mode  of  teaching. 

A  visitor  to  our  library  from  Spring  City,  Chester  county,  Pa., 
where  he  was  then  teaching,  stated  that  he  was  a  native  of  Bed- 
ford county.  Pa.,  and  that  there  was  an  eight-square  house  in 
that  county,  still  in  use,  that  was  a  rare  curiosity. 

Just  across  the  Delaware  in  Hunterdon  county,  N.  J.,  we 
have  located  ten  octagonal  schoolhouses,  and  there  were  probably 
more.  Two  of  these  were  six  sided  instead  of  eight,  but  had 
otherwise  the  same  style  of  constntction  and  equipment.  In  that 
locality,  as  in  Bucks  county,  they  were  not  considered  so  great 
a  curiosity,  being  looked  upon  simply  as  an  obsolete  and  an- 
tiquated style  of  building,  that  had  recently   fallen   into   disuse. 

Our  friend  and  fellow  member,  Hiram  E.  Deats  of  Flemington, 
N.  J.,  has  kindly  brought  us  pictures  of  some  of  these  New  Jersey 
temples  of  learning  that  will  give  you  a  clear  idea  of  their  ap- 
pearance.* I  personally  recall  seeing  several  of  these  eight-square 
schoolhouses  in  his  county  forty-odd  years  ago. 

The  octagonal  schoolhouses  in  Hunterdon  county.  New  Jersey, 
of  which  we  have  a  definite  record  are  as  follows  : 

Union  School,  at  Slacktown,  erected  1820,  near  the  center  of  what 
was  known  as   the   Great   Black   Bear   Swamp. 

Mount  Airy,  on  the  York  road,  three  miles  from  Lambertville, 
erected   1823. 

Van  Dolah's,  near  Dilt's  Corner,  hexagon,  erected  1822,  torn  down, 
1908. 

Sergeant's,  near  Sergeantsville,  still  standing  but  enlarged,   1830. 

Stockton,  erected  1832. 

Union,  in  Union  township,  erected  1837. 

Oregon,  near  Croton,  no  date,  part  of  walls  still  standing;   hexagon. 

*  The  pictures  of  schoolhouses  produced  by  Mr.  Deats  at  the  meeting-  were 
in  local  publications  and  we  have  not  acquired  copies.  They  resembled  in  all 
particulars  the  other  octagonal  schoolhouses  of  which  we  give  illustrations. 


302  OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT  SQUARe"   SCHOOLHOUSES 

Harmony,  on  the  road  from  Ringoes  to  Croton,  erected  1851;  stand- 
ing until  about  1901. 

Mt.  Lebanon,  in  Lebanon  township,  erected  in   1835,  torn  down  1876. 
Sand  Brook,  about  four  miles  from  Stockton,  standing  in   1860. 

All  of  these  were  built  to  succeed  log  of  frame  schoolhouses 
and  with  the  exception  of  Oregon,  some  history  of  the  districts 
and  schools  and  schoolhouses  is  given  in  a  manuscript  "History 
of  the  School  Districts  of  Hunterdon  County,"  written  by  Cor- 
nelius S.  Conkling  in  1870,  then  county  superintendent  of  schools. 

Having  heard  of  an  octagonal  schoolhouse  near  Gloucester,  N. 
J.,  I  wrote  to  David  J.  Doran  in  regard  to  it,  and  received  the 
following  reply : 

"In  reply  to  your  letter  inquiring  about  an  eight-square  schoolhouse 
in  this  place,  I  would  say  that  it  stood  on  the  north  side  of  Big  Timber 
Creek,  near  the  bridge,  and  faced  a  famous  highway  that  ran  from 
Salem  to  Gloucester,  and  every  Tuesday  and  Friday  the  famous  Fox 
Hunting  club  used  to  pass,  gaudily  attired  and  mounted  on  thorough- 
breds, with  a  pack  of  forty  hounds,  on  a  fox  chase  in  the  woods  from 
1766  to  1814.  It  was  built  long  ago  and  the  door  faced  the  old  Salem 
road,  now  wiped  out,  as  a  straighter  road  was  built  in  1844  about  a 
hundred  yards  away.  The  house  was  of  brick  about  the  same  size  as 
others  of  its  kind  and  exact  dimensions  can  be  found  in  some  book  on 
rural  schools.  It  was  on  the  ground  and  had  no  cellar,  nor  woodshed, 
the  wood  being  in  a  pile  which  the  boys  chopped  (being  farmers  sons 
and  used  to  this  work),  the  w^ood  stove  that  heated  the  school  was  in 
the  center  of  the  room  the  pipe  leading  up  to  the  chimney  hole  with  a 
short  chimney  in  the  center  of  the  octagonal  roof.  The  windows  were 
long,  one  in  each  side  and  with  twelve  panes  and  around  the  door  was 
a  portico.  Scholars  attending  this  school  say  the  desk  did  not  stand 
(fastened)  against  the  wall,  as  described  in  historical  matter  relating  to 
such  schools,  but  insist  that  the  desks  stood  so  that  the  light  fell  over 
their  shoulders,  and  the  benches  were  against  the  walls.  The  small 
boys  and  girls  were  seated  in  the  center  of  the  room  and  the  teacher's 
desk  was  to  the  left  on  entering  and  a  bucket  with  cup  was  used  for 
drinking.  The  boys  had  to  go  out  into  the  woods  nearby  and  cut  the 
rods  used  in  whipping  the  bad  boys.  About  one  hundred  scholars  were 
generally  in  attendance  and  the  school  district  was  about  five  miles  and 
originally  was  built  in  colonial  days  when  the  farmers  in  the  district 
were  Quakers,  but  the  latter  was  a  public  school.  Before  1836  the 
school  was  in  old  Gloucester  City,  but  scholars  from  the  southern  end 
used  to  go  there  and  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  there,  lying 
near  Westville,  now  a  good  sized  town  with  its  own  schools.  Miss 
Priscilla  Redfield,  daughter  of  John  Redfield,  a  historian,  used  to  teach 
there  and  some  of  the  scholars  grew  up  and  got  rich.  There  were 
several  other  eight-square   schoolhouses  in  this   section,  all  were  brick. 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED   ''eIGHT   SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES  303 

The  old  log  school  has  passed  away  without  any  trace  although  I  am 
positive  they  were  in  this  state.  I  cannot  find  any  eight-square  school- 
houses  standing  around  here,  but  I've  heard  there  are  some  left  in  your 
state  of  Pennsylvania.  The  school  I've  described  was  plastered,  against 
the  brick  on  the  sides  and  ceiling  squared  away  leaving  a  little  attic, 
the  roof  was  of  shingles." 

OCTAGONAL  SCHOOLHOUSES  IN   BUCKS  COUNTY. 

The  octagonal  schoolhouses  in  Bucks  county  of  which  we  have 
record  were  nine  in  number  as  follows : 

1.  Oxford  or  Neeld  Eight  Square  in  Lower  Makefield  near 
Oxford  Valley,  with  date  stone  marked  "1775,"  which  corre- 
sponds with  the  date  of  the  conveyance  of  the  lot  to  trustees. 
(D.  B.  18,  p.  211.)  Dr.  Mercer,  however,  basing  his  opinion  on 
a  scientific  investigation  of  its  construction  made  by  Frank  K. 
Swain,  claims  that  it  was  built  as  late  as  1830.  (A  full  text  of 
Dr.  Mercer's  opinion  is  hereto  attached.)  The  date-  stone  may 
have  been  taken  from  an  earlier  building  on  the  site.  General 
Davis  says  that  the  youth  of  Yardleyville  attended  this  school, 
until  an  octagonal  schoolhouse  was  erected  on  the  site  of  Oak 
Grove  schoolhouse. 

2.  Penns  Park,  on  the  Swamp  road  at  its  intersection  with  the 
Second  Street  Pike,  about  one  mile  southwest  of  the  village  of 
Penns  Park  in  \\'rightstown  township.  It  was  erected  in  1802, 
and  is  described  by  Alden  M.  Collins  in  a  paper  read  at  our  meet- 
ing last  June  at  the  Buckingham  Meeting-house.  The  outside 
measurement  of  the  walls  is  11  feet  2  inches  on  each  face.  Walls 
8  feet  high  and  18  inches  thick.  Windows  in  each  face  except 
the  one  occupied  by  the  door.  Window  apertures  3  feet  9  inches 
by  2  feet  8  inches  high.  Pyramid  shaped  roof  surmounted  at 
apex  by  a  hooded  pipe  in  the  place  of  a  chimney.  Roof  originally 
of  shingles,  now  covered  with  tin. 

3.  Franklin,  near  Bursonville,  in  Springfield  township,  said  to 
have  been  built  in  1807  or  1809,  but  no  proof  submitted  showing 
so  early  a  date.  I  was  unable  to  find  deeds  to  trustees  for  the 
site.  A  full  description  of  this  schoolhouse  and  the  school  con- 
ducted therein  is  given  in  the  Riegclsvillc  News  of  October  9, 
1901,  and  in  a  paper  read  June  9,  1900,  by  Miss  Myra  Brodt, 
before  the  Buckwampun  Historical  Society.  The  construction 
corresponds   with  that   of   other   octagon   schoolhouses   given   in 


304  OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT  SQUARE"   SCIIOOLHOUSES 

this  narrative.  A  window  in  each  of  the  seven  sides,  and  the 
door  in  the  eighth ;  teacher's  desk  opposite  door ;  stove  in  centre ; 
surrounded  by  benches  used  by  scholars  too  small  to  write ; 
bucket  of  water  on  bench  near  the  door  and  the  usual  paddle  or 
tag  hung  at  the  door  with  "out"  and  "in"  on  it.  William  J. 
Buck,  our  early  historian,  was  one  of  the  founders,  and  a  trustee 
of  this  school.  The  desks  as  described  differ  from  those  de- 
scribed in  the  other  schools,  as  they  were  "closed  with  lids  fast- 
ened on  hinges."  Several  incidents  in  the  history  of  the  school 
are  given  in  this  sketch,  and  a  reference  to  the  kind  of  books 
used.  The  fields  surrounding  the  schoolhouse  were  many  times 
surveyed,  in  giving  the  pupils  practical  education  in  surveying. 

4.  Leidytown,  in  Hilltown  township,  at  intersection  of  Bethle- 
hem road  with  road  from  Chalfont,  built  1816.  Miss  Euphemia 
James,  who  attended  school  there,  has  given  interesting  reminis- 
censes.     Long  since  torn  down. 

5.  Stewart's,  in  New  Britain  township,  on  the  Ferry  road, 
near  Fountainville,  built  in  1816,  torn  down  by  Arthur  Chapman, 
on  whose  land  it  was  located,  the  site  having  reverted  to  him  by 
lapse  of  school  several  years  ago. 

6.  Hickory  Grove,  on  the  Durham  road,  in  Buckingham,  near 
Plumstead  township  line,  built  1818  (D.  B.  46,  p.  500).  replaced 
by  present  rectangular  stone  building  several  years  ago.  Built 
by  subscribers  from  Buckingham  and  Plumstead.  Originally 
called  Union  Schoolhouse. 

7.  Groveland,  in  Plumstead  township,  near  Hinkletown,  ad- 
joining the  Mennonite  Meeting-house,  lot  conveyed  to  trustees  in 
1833.  (D.  B.  58,  p.  10.)  It  was  built  of  planks  spiked  laterally 
to  upright  posts  and  lathed  and  plastered  inside  and  out.  Was, 
as  near  as  we  can  learn,  of  about  the  same  size  and  form  and 
equipped  in  the  same  way  as  the  stone  octagons. 

8.  Mine  Spring,  in  Bridgeton  township,  near  Rupletown.  Our 
fellow  member,  J.  H.  Fitzgerald,  who  attended  school  there,  says 
it  was  a  school  fifty  years  ago.  It  appears  on  Scott's  Atlas  of 
1876. 

9.  Lumberville,  at  the  intersection  of  the  State  road  with  the 
road  from  Lumberville  to  Carversville,  a  short  distance  west  of 
the  present   Green   Hill   schoolhouse,   stood   an   octagon    school- 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT   SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES  305 

house  erected  in  1824,  on  land  conveyed  by  Abraham  Paxson  to 
Samuel  Hartley,  Esq.,  Robert  Livezy  and  David  McCray,  trus- 
tees for  the  subscribers  to  a  fund  for  building  a  schoolhouse.^ 
A  school  was  maintained  there  until  about  1858.  During  the 
last  fifteen  years  of  that  period  it  was  under  the  common  school 
system  of  Pennsylvania.  By  deed  dated  June  24,  1858,  the  then 
trustees  (surviving)  John  E.  Kenderdine,  Amos  Armitage  and 
Cyrus  Livezey,  conveyed  the  lot  to  the  school  directors  of  Sole- 
bury  township.  It  was  then  about  to  be  abandoned,  and  was 
almost  immediately  conveyed  by  the  school  directors  to  Hiram 
Keise  and  was  used  for  some  years  as  a  dwelling.  This  deed 
contains  the  following  clause:  "Whereas  owing  to  insufficient 
size  and  dilapidated  condition  of  the  schoolhouse,  rendering  it 
vmsuitable  to  supply  the  present  wants  of  the  neighborhood  and 
the  operation  of  the  school  law  making  it  unnecessary  that  the 
neighborhood  should  rebuild  the  house,  the  proprietors  have  di- 
rected the  said  trustees  to  convey  the  said  house  and  lot  to  the 
Solebury  School  District. 

Our  friend,  Thaddeus  S.  Kenderdine,  in  his  "History  of  the 
Kenderdine  Family,"  page  244,  gives  a  history  and  description  of 
this  schoolhouse,  which  is  accompanied  by  a  cut  thereof.  Mr. 
Kenderdine  gives  the  date  of  erection  as  1823.  The  deed  for 
the  property  is  dated  February  21,  1824,  and  the  schoolhouse 
had  probably  been  erected  in  the  autumn  preceding. 

Mr.  Kenderdine  says  the  school-room  was  not  over  ten  yards 
across.  "Besides  the  desks  circling  the  walls  two  rows  crossed 
the  room  and  next  to  these  were  benches  for  the  smaller  chil- 
dren, who  sat  in  discomfort  for  their  feet  swung  above  the 
floor.     Still  in  front  of  these  were  the  reciting  classes." 

A  huge  ten  plate  stove  used  to  heat  the  room  in  earlier 
days,  was  changed  to  a  cylinder  stove  when  coal  came  into  use. 

We  have  more  or  less  minute  descriptions  of  several  of  the 
octagonal  schoolhouses  in  the  above  lists  as  well  as  a  number  of 
the  schoolhouses  in  other  localities,  and  they  all  correspond 
more  or  less  in  size  and  form  of  construction,  as  well  as  in  the 
internal  arrangements.  The  schoolhouse  at  Newtown  Square, 
of  which  we  give  an  illustration,  made  from  a  draft  by  an  archi- 
tect, shows  the  desks  and  seats  of  the  scholars  dififerently  ar- 

1   Deed  Book  No.   70,  p.   575. 


306  OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "eIGHT   SQUARE^   SCHOOLHOUSES 

ranged  than  in  the  octagonal  schoolhouses  either  in  Bucks  and 
other  counties,  or  in  New  Jersey,  in  that  the  scholars  sat  facing 
the  center  of  the  room  instead  of,  as  in  other  schools,  facing  the 
walls.  The  arrangement  of  the  chimney  and  location  of  the 
stove  is  exactly  similar  in  the  descriptions  we  have  obtained. 
The  chimney  was  built  upon  timbers,  extending  across  the  school- 
house,  resting  on  the  top  of  the  walls,  and  supporting  a  ceiling, 
where,  as  usual,  there  was  a  ceiling.  These  chimneys  were  built 
either  of  stone  or  brick,  and  extended  up  through  the  peak  of 
the  roof,  and  the  stove  was  located  in  the  center  of  the  room,  a 
pipe  extending  directly  upward  into  the  chimney  at  the  ceiling. 

In  the  case  of  the  Penns  Park  schoolhouse,  No.  2,  in  the 
above  list,  there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  chimney,  the 
stove  pipe  extending  directly  up  through  the  apex  of  the  roof, 
and  provided  with  a  hood  at  its  terminus. 

C.  Yardley  Stradling  sent  us  a  detailed  description  of  the  Neeld 
or  Oxford  schoolhouse,  especially  the  arrangement  of  the  chim- 
ney, which  corresponds  with  our  statement  made  above. 

Dr.  Mercer's  opinion  in  reference  to  the  Neeld  octagonal  school- 
house  is  as  follows : 

"Neeld  Octagon  Schoolhouse  as  examined  by  Frank  K.  Swain  on 
Sept.  25,  1920,  is  an  octagon  built  of  surface  sandstone  laid  in  crumbling 
lime  and  sand  mortar  with  walls  18  inches  thick  and  7  feet  and  9  inches 
high  inside,  plastered  outside  and  in.  The  whole  24  feet  1  inch  in  di- 
ameter inside  and  with  its  inside  faces  10  feet  wide.  It  shows  a  recent 
shingle  roof,  modern  shutters  nailed  fast,  a  little  brick  chimney  21 K' 
inches  by  9  inches  at  its  apex,  one  entrance  door  and  windows,  with 
sashes  lost,  in  each  wall  face  except  that  of  the  door. 

The  floor  of  the  single  interior  room  built  over  a  two  feet  deep  cellar, 
with  a  central  foundation  wall  for  its  rafters,  is  level  with  the  outer 
ground.  All  the  furniture  of  this  old  schoolroom  and  its  attachments 
are  gone,  but  several  blocks  and  strips,  walled  in  the  interior  wall,  show 
that  there  was  a  teacher's  platform  opposite  the  door  about  six  inches 
high,  and  that  a  washboard,  a  fixed  desk  on  plank  ends  against  the  wall 
with  narrow  top  board  and  bottom  shelf,  and  a  series  of  wooden  hat- 
pegs  on  the  window  top  level,  encircled  the  entire  room.  All  the  old 
window  sash  are  gone.  So  is  the  door.  The  door  opening  is  boxed 
and  the  window  openings  boxed  above  and  below  but  plastered  on  the 
sides.  The  original  river  lath  and  plastered  ceiling  follows  the  rafters 
for  about  three  feet  and  then  crosses  the  room  forming  a  truncated  octa- 
gonal ceiling  with  a  stove  pipe  hole  encased  with  an  earthenware  tube 
in  its  flat   center,   10  feet  above   the   floor,   thus   concealing  a   sealed   up 


OCTAGONAL  OR  SO-CALLED  "EIGHT  SQUARE"   SCHOOLHOUSES  307 

doorless  small  garret  in  the  apex  which  hides  the  interior  of  the  Uttle 
brick  flue  there  suspended. 

Notwithstanding  the  red  sandstone  date  stone,  dated  '1775,'  and  left 
unplastered  on  the  outer  wall  space,  next  to  the  left  of  the  door  face, 
the  well  preserved  cut  nails,  with  machine  squared,  and  not  hand  ham- 
mered, heads,  hence  not  of  the  earliest  type,  found  by  us  in  the  original 
riven  lath  of  the  ceiling,  and  in  the  original  moulding  edging  the  original 
wall  fastenings  around  the  windows,  are  entirely  out  of  place  and  im- 
possible in  a  building  constructed  in  1775,  when  only  wrought  nails 
were  used.  In  spite  of  the  loss  of  nearly  all  the  distinctive  interior 
fittings,  these  tell-tale  nails  indicate  that  the  date  stone  above  men- 
tioned is  a  relic  of  an  older  building,  and  proves  that  this  schoolhouse 
was  built,  not  in  1775,  but  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  19th  century." 

With  all  due  deference  to  Dr.  Mercer's  knowledge  of  the  con- 
struction of  old  houses  and  his  remarkable  ability  in  dating  them 
from  the  construction,  we  think  it  is  possible  that  the  ceiling  and 
inside  plastering  with  its  original  mouldings,  may  have  been 
added  fifty  years  after  the  erection  of  the  schoolhouse.  How- 
ever, inasmuch  as  General  Davis  reports  a  tradition  that  the 
youth  from  Yardley  attended  this  school  before  an  eight-square 
schoolhouse  was  erected  on  the  site  of  Oak  Grove  school  in 
Yardley,  it  looks  to  me  as  if  the  "erection  of  the  eight-square 
schoolhouse"  pertained  to  the  renewal  of  the  old  schoolhouse  at 
Oxford,  instead  of  the  new  one  at  Oak  Grove,  and  the  tradition 
got  mixed  to  that  extent. 


Sketch  of  Dr.  Jonathan  Ingham. 

BY   JOHN    HALL   INGHAM,    ESQ.,   PHILADELPHIA,    PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting-,   January    15,    1921.) 

THE  grandfather  of  Dr.  Jonathan  Ingham,  Jonas  Ingham,  a 
native  of  England  and  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends, 
came  to  New  England  about  1705  and  in  1730  moved  with 
his  family  to  Bucks  county,  Pennsylvania.  His  only  son,  Jona- 
than, succeeded  to  his  father's  farm  and  fulling-mill. 

Among  the  grants  of  land  made  by  William  Penn  in  1702  was 
one  of  about  five  hundred  acres  to  James  Logan,  his  secretary, 
located  in  a  limestone  region  along  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Dela- 
ware, in  Solebury  township,  and  abutting  on  the  Proprietary 
Manor  of  Highlands.  This  was  a  beautiful  domain  and  was 
called  in  Logan's  patent  the  "Great  Spring  Tract"  and  by  the 
Indians  "Aquetong".  In  1741  Logan  sold  two  hundred  acres  of 
this  property  to  Jacob  Dean  and  the  residue,  in  1747,  to  Dean's 
brother-in-law,  Jonathan  Ingham.  The  latter  lot  included  the 
Great  Spring  and  this  property  remained  in  the  possession  of  the 
Ingham  family  for  over  one  hundred  years.  Jonathan  Ingham 
was  successful  as  a  farmer  and  clothier,  filled  the  offices  of  justice 
and  judge  and,  as  a  member  of  the  Colonial  Assembly,  took  an 
active  part  in  the  contests  of  that  body  with  the  Proprietaries. 

Jonathan,  by  his  wife,  Deborah  Bye,  had  three  sons,  John, 
Jonas  and  Jonathan.  The  last-named,  who  is  the  subject  of  the 
present  sketch,  was  born  at  Great  Spring  on  July  16,  1744.  The 
father  was  a  narrow^  sectarian  and,  considering  the  heretical 
views  of  the  oldest  son,  John,  a  proof  of  a  disordered  mind, 
sent  him  to  a  hospital  for  lunatics,  where  he  died  soon  after. 
This  measure  was  disapproved  of  by  the  two  brothers,  especially 
by  Jonathan,  but  such  autocratic  proceedings  were  more  in  vogue 
in  those  patriarchal  days  than  they  fortunately  are  now. 

The  tastes  of  Jonas  were  scientific  and  he  became  a  mathema- 
tician and  a  natural  philosopher  and  made  several  useful  me- 
chanical inventions.  He,  too,  seriously  offended  his  father  by  an 
unsanctioned  marriage  and,  as  a  result  of  this,  Jonathan  was  later 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  paternal  establishment. 


SKETCH    OF    DR.    JONATHAN    INGHAM  309 

Jonathan  early  in  life  showed  a  great  fondness  for  languages, 
especially  for  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  of  which  he  acquired 
considerable  knowledge  with  little  or  no  assistance.  At  the  age 
of  nineteen,  a  disagreement  with  his  father  threw  him  on  his  own 
resources  and  he  became  an  assistant  on  the  farm  of  Dr.  Paschal, 
near  Darby.  The  latter  had  a  fine  library  and  this  gave  the  young 
assistant  an  opportunity  of  extending  his  classical  studies  during 
his  leisure  hours.  Such  a  predilection  aroused  the  doctor's  in- 
terest and  he  decided  to  offer  the  young  man  a  situation  as  stu- 
dent of  medicine  and  this  oft'er  was  gladly  accepted.  A  lifelong 
friendship  between  the  two  was  the  result  and,  when  his  studies 
were  completed,  Jonathan,  it  is  thought  through  the  intercession 
of  the  doctor,  was  invited  home  and,  as  has  been  said,  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  establishment.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he 
married  Ann  Welding  of  Bordentown,  New  Jersey,  and,  with 
the  aid  of  her  portion,  was  enabled  to  purchase  the  family  estate. 
They  had  eleven  children,  of  whom  the  fifth,  Samuel  Delucenna 
Ingham,  became  prominent  in  the  political  life  of  the  nation  and 
was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  Jackson's  administration.  The 
writer  of  the  present  sketch  is  his  grandson. 

Dr.  Jonathan  Ingham  became  a  well-known  practitioner,  in 
addition  to  his  labors  as  manager  of  the  farm  and  the  fulling- 
mill.  His  ledger  from  September  1782  to  May  1786  has  come 
into  the  possession  of  this  society  and  a  few  remarks  on  it  will 
not  be  out  of  place.  It  starts  with  an  estimate  of  his  cattle  and 
horses  at  £1,325  10s,  of  the  house  furniture  at  £132  10s,  and 
of  the  framing  utensils  at  £62.  Daily  disbursements  and  re- 
ceipts are  entered  with  great  regularity  and  the  accounts  of  the 
house,  the  farm,  the  fulling-mill  and  the  sawmill  are  interspersed 
among  those  of  his  numerous  patients.  Among  their  names  are 
many  still  extant  in  the  county,  such  as  Coryell,  Paxton,  Ross, 
Lear.  Ely.  \\'atson.  Scarborough,  etc..  and  there  is  a  Thomas 
Biddle.  who  suggests  the  neighboring  metropolis.  There  are  pa- 
tients, too.  of  humbler  rank,  such  as  Negros  Jack,  Tony,  Peter, 
Sam,  Dina  and  Hellens.  Molatto  (sic)  James.  Indian  Dina,  Dutch 
Jacob  and  Cobble  John.  Inoculations  are  frequent  and  seem  to 
cost  from  lis.  to  £1  2s.  6d.  per  person,  while  bleedings  cost 
about  Is.  6d.  and  there  is  a  charge  of  3s.  9d.  for  gelding  a  calf. 
There  is  an  account  with  "Wife's  Estate  in  Jersey"  and  a  debit 


310  SKETCH    OF    DR.    JONATHAN    INGHAM 

"To  Cash,  Rum,  etc.",  £1  2s.  would  not  please  the  prohibition- 
ists, if  there  were  any  such  at  that  time.  In  Abraham  Littleton's 
account  the  value  of  "a  Spinning  Machine  left  useless  on  my 
Hands  at  his  Death"  is  placed  at  £7,  10s.  A  careful  examination 
of  this  ledger  will  repay  those  interested  in  antiquarian  and 
genealogical  researches. 

The  doctor,  notwithstanding  his  many  preoccupations,  con- 
tinued his  studies,  became  a  good  Greek  and  Latin  scholar,  under- 
stood German  also,  and  was  tolerably  versed  in  Hebrew,  French 
and  Spanish.  He  translated  many  of  the  Odes  of  Pindar  and 
Theocritus  and  turned  some  of  the  books  of  Fenelon's  "Tele- 
maque"  into  English  verse.  He  could  converse  with  one  tribe  of 
Indians  in  their  own  dialect. 

I  have  before  me  a  manuscript  translation  of  the  elegy  on  the 
death  of  Bion  by  Moschus,  58  stanzas,  with  a  refrain,  in  which 
the  versification  is  smooth  and  scholarly.  I  quote  three  verses 
and  the  refrain  in  full : 

1. 
Ye  spacious  bending  Forests  moan, 
Let  vocal  Rocks  and  Mountains  groan, 

Let  every  murmuring  Stream 
More  tuneful,  more  melodious  flow 
In  solemn  ecstacy  of  woe 

To  deck  the  ushering  theme. 

3. 
Alone  may  Flowers  on  Ivy  blow, 
No  more  their  dearest  sweets  bestow. 

The  Roses  of  the  morn. 
The  Anemone   in  concert   blest 
To  deck  the  beauteous  Virgin's  breast 

Shall  now  no  more  be  worn. 

4. 
The  lettered  Hyacinth  but  show 
In  lasting  characters  of  woe 

How  we  our  loss  deplore. 
Alas!  alas,  be  plainer  read 
LIpon  its  lowlier  drooping  head. 

Since  Bion  is  no  more. 

(Refrain) 
Sicilian  Muses,  come  begin  the  strain 
In  all  your  moving  elegance  of  verse. 
O,  by  your  influence  sadly  soothe  our  pain. 
To  latest  times  our  poignant  woes  rehearse. 


SKETCH    OF    DR.    JONATHAN    INGHAM  311 

The  Revolution  coming  on.  he  entered  with  zest  into  the  spirit 
of  the  American  cause.  His  brother  Jonas  took  the  field  as 
officer  of  a  volunteer  corps  and  the  doctor  constantly  gave  his 
professional  services  to  the  troops.  In  fact  he  was  enlisted  him- 
self, as  shown  in  the  return  of  Capt.  Robert  Laning's  Company 
in  Solebury  in  1782,  (see  Pa.  Archives,  Series  5,  Vol.  5,  p.  551). 
And,  as  to  Jonas,  see  the  same  volume,  pp.  330,  337-8,  4G6,  441. 
The  Ingham  estate  was  the  camping  ground  of  George  Wash- 
ington and  his  troops  on  their  retreat  from  New  Jersey  in  1776 
and  the  buildings  were  used  as  hospitals,  with  Jonathan  in  con- 
stant attendance  on  the  sick  and  wounded. 

When  the  war  closed,  he  took  an  active  part  on  the  side  of  the 
Republican  W^higs  and  wTote  much  against  what  he  considered 
the  monarchical  tendencies  of  certain  measures.  He  denounced 
the  scheme  of  funding  the  w^ar  debt  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of 
speculators,  while  the  poor  soldier,  for  all  his  services  and  suffer- 
ings, had  to  be  content  to  receive  two  shillings  and  sixpence  to 
the  pound  for  his  certificate.  Many  of  his  neighbors  disapproved 
of  his  politics,  but  he  "silenced  them  by  the  pungent  satire  of  his 
burlesque  Pindarics". 

During  the  yellow  fever  epidemic  in  Philadelphia  in  1793, 
the  doctor  visited  the  city  to  make  a  scientific  study  of  the  dis- 
ease. After  his  return  home,  hearing  that  many  of  the  physicians 
had  fled  from  the  plague-smitten  city,  he  denounced  such  conduct 
and  in  his  indignation  decided  to  go  back.  W'ith  his  friends. 
Dr.  Hutchinson  and  Samuel  Wetherill,  Jr.,  he  visited  and  helped 
to  relieve  the  sufferers  in  the  most  infected  districts.  Dr.  Benja- 
min Rush,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration,  was  engaged  in  the  same 
splendid  work  and  was  honored  by  the  Czar  of  Russia  with  a  gift 
of  a  fine  ruby  as  an  appreciation  of  his  services  therein.  Dr. 
Ingham  finally  contracted  the  disease  and,  having  a  great  belief 
in  the  medicinal  value  of  Schooley's  Mountain  Springs,  started 
for  that  place  with  his  wife  and  her  brother  in  a  farm  wagon. 
The  houses  along  the  way  refused  to  take  him  in  and  he  died  in 
the  wagon  at  the  roadside  at  a  point  about  one  mile  west  of 
Clinton,  N.  J.,  October  1,  1793.  He  was  buried  in  the  grave- 
yard of  the  Bethlehem,  N.  J..  Presbyterian  Church. 


Broom  Making  By  Hand 

BY  GRIER  SCHEETZ,  BETHLEHEM,  PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,   January   15,    1921.) 

AGES  have  passed  and  gone  and  so  far  as  the  memory  of 
man  runs  there  always  has  been  a  woman  and  a  broom. 
Witches  are  always  represented  as  riding  on  a  broom. 
The  cave-woman  used  a  branch  of  spruce  or  hemlock  for  her 
broom,  while  during  the  time  of  Christ,  Holy  Writ  informs  us, 
rooms  were  swept  and  garnished.  It  remained,  however,  for  Dr. 
Benjamin  Franklin  to  introduce  broomcorn  into  the  United  States. 
He  found  an  imported  whisk  in  the  possession  of  a  woman  in 
Philadelphia  and  asked  permission  to  examine  it.  He  found  a 
single  seed  upon  a  splint  of  the  whisk.  This  he  appropriated  and 
planted.  The  crop  produced  from  this  single  seed  was  replanted 
and  the  product  was  made  into  brooms.  It  is  said  that  the  whisk 
in  the  possession  of  this  woman  came  from  the  East  Indies.  It 
may  be  surprising  when  I  state  that  over  the  past  one  hundred 
years  there  has  been  very  little  change  made  in  the  manufacture 
of  house  brooms  by  hand.  Sixty  years  ago  John  Charles,  of 
Keller's  Church,  in  Bedmister  township,  traveled  from  one  farm 
to  another  with  his  tackle  of  rope,  clamp,  needle,  twine,  and 
curry-comb  to  make  up  the  broomcorn  into  brooms  for  the  va- 
rious'farmers.  At  that  time  brooms  could  not  be  purchased  at 
any  store.  In  later  years  the  merchants  purchased  the  surplus 
brooms  from  the  farmers  and  oflfered  them  for  sale. 

Previous  to  the  raising  of  broomcorn  men  went  into  the  forest 
and  cut  smooth  hickory  saplings  about  three  inches  thick  and 
live  feet  long.  These  they  placed  into  an  old-fashioned  wooden 
vise  and  with  a  sharp  drawing  knife  began  cutting  or  shaving  in 
splints  about  eighteen  inches  from  the  butt  end.  These  were 
drawn  or  shaved  down  to  within  about  five  inches  of  the  same 
end.  The  sapling  was  then  turned  until  the  first  layer  was 
formed.  The  splints  were  repeatedly  turned  down  over  the  butt 
end  until  the  sapling  had  been  reduced  to  one  and  one-half 
inches.  This  was  securely  tied  with  linen  cord  thus  making  a 
splint  broom  of  from  six  to  eight  inches  through  the  center.    The 


BROOM    MAKING    BY    HAND  313 

remainder  of  the  sapling  was  cut  or  shaved  down  to  about  one 
and  one-half  inches.  This  became  the  handle  of  the  splint  broom. 
At  the  present  time  one  will  occasionally  find  a  broom  of  that 
kind  used  as  a  barn  or  stable  broom. 

Broomcorn  is  planted  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  field,  or  Indian  corn.  After  the  stalk  has  grown  toward 
maturity  the  top  becomes  heavy  from  the  weight  of  the  seed  and 
begins  to  spread.  At  this  time  it  must  be  bent  over  about  twenty- 
four  or  thirty  inches  from  the  top  so  that  the  seed  hangs  down 
along  the  stalk.  This  becomes  necessary  so  as  to  prevent  the 
seed  from  spreading  at  the  top.  After  the  seed  has  ripened  the 
bent  part  is  cut  off,  placed  in  bundles,  and  taken  to  the  barn.  If 
raised  for  the  market  the  seed  is  removed  by  a  machine  similar 
to  a  clover  huller.  The  broomcorn  is  then  placed  in  bales  and  is 
ready  for  shipment.  In  former  years  the  seed  was  thrown  away 
or  burned,  however,  it  is  now  fed  to  fowls  and  cattle.  The  old 
method  was  to  remove  the  seed  with  a  flax  hatchel,  and  later  with 
a  currycomb.  In  Bucks  and  neighboring  counties  the  farmers 
still  raise  broomcorn  for  their  own  use,  usually  taking  it  to  the 
broommaker  with  its  seed. 

James  Bergey,  of  Perkasie,  who  is  now  sixty-five  years  of  age 
has  made  brooms  for  many  years.  He,  too,  in  years  gone  by,  has 
used  the  currycomb  to  remove  the  seeds.  He  now,  however,  has 
a  machine  similar  to  a  clover  huller,  which  is  called  a  power 
scraper,  that  removes  the  seeds.  This  machine  is  operated  by  foot- 
power.  Mr.  Bergey,  when  he  wishes  to  make  a  broom,  places  a 
handle  into  a  machine  known  as  a  cage  broom  winder,  also 
operated  by  foot-power.  He  inserts  the  end  of  a  wire,  instead  of 
twine  or  cord,  into  a  hole  in  the  handle.  Enough  broomcorn  is 
used  to  make  one  layer  around  the  broom  handle.  By  motion  of 
the  foot  the  handle  revolves  and  as  it  does  so  binds  the  broom- 
corn to  it  by  means  of  the  wire  that  has  been  inserted.  A  bunch 
of  broomcorn  is  next  placed  on  each  side  of  the  handle  so  as  to 
make  the  shoulder.  Still  more  broomcorn  is  added,  this  time 
with  the  butt  end  reversed.  This  is  wired  as  before  and  turned 
back  over  the  other  layer.  A  hasp  is  placed  over  the  broomcorn 
to  keep  it  together  and  another  layer,  the  same  as  the  first  and 
placed  as  before,  is  added.  As  many  layers  are  added  as  are 
necessary  to  make  the  brooms  lighter  or  heavier  as  desired.     The 


314  BROOM    MAKING    BY    HAND 

hasp  is  now  removed  and  again  placed  over  the  added  layer. 
The  edges  of  the  broomcorn  around  the  handle  are  hammered 
down  with  a  dull  edged  pounder  in  order  to  make  the  broomcorn 
fit  snug  around  it.  A  thin  layer  of  broomcorn,  called  the  hurl, 
is  then  put  on  to  make  a  neat  finish.  The  brace  is  then  removed 
and  a  cap  made  of  tin  is  placed  over  the  top  and  wired  fast. 
The  broom  at  this  stage  is  round  in  appearance,  and  is  removed 
to  the  clamp  or  press,  which  is  equipped  with  two  upright  jaws 
about  three  feet  high,  operated  by  a  powerful  lever.  The  broom 
is  then  inserted  into  these  jaws,  the  lever  pressed  down,  and  the 
broomcorn  flattened  into  the  shape  of  a  broom,  after  which  it  is 
sewed.  Mr.  Bergey  uses  a  double  pointed  steel  needle  with  the 
eye  in  the  middle  and  a  filed  groove  running  through  the  center. 
This  needle,  made  by  himself,  sews  the  broom  in  such  a  way 
that  he  need  not  turn  the  needle,  thus  saving  the  time  it  other- 
wise takes  to  turn  it.  He  uses  a  leather  cuiT  on  each  hand  with 
a  steel  disk,  or  plate,  over  the  ball  of  his  thumb  by  which  he 
pushes  the  needle  through  the  broomcorn.  In  making  a  broom  of 
short  broomcorn  he  places  one  layer  within  one  inch  of  the  butt 
of  the  handle  where  it  is  wired ;  he  adds  another  layer  two  inches 
back  and  also  wires  that.  A  third  layer  is  placed  two  inches  above 
the  second  layer.  This  is  sewed  in  three  dififerent  places.  When 
the  good  housewife  uses  the  first  layer  to  where  it  is  sewed  she 
cuts  the  cord,  or  string,  which  opens  the  second  layer  and  then 
has  a  renewed  broom.  The  broom  now  practically  completed  is 
removed  from  the  clamp  and  taken  to  the  broom  clipper,  which 
is  shaped  like  a  feed  cutter,  where  the  bottom  of  the  broom  is 
neatly  trimmed. 

Benjamin  Steeley,  also  of  Perkasie,  used  the  method  of  making 
brooms  that  was  in  vogue  one  hundred  years  ago.  First  he 
places  the  broomcorn  in  hot  water  to  make  it  soft  and  pliable. 
Next  he  takes  a  bunch  of  broomcorn  large  enough  to  make  a 
broom  and  places  it  in  a  slip  loop  of  a  three-fourth  inch  rope 
fastened  to  a  post  or  rafter,  with  the  loop  about  six  inches  from 
the  floor.  He  places  his  foot  upon  the  bunch  of  broomcorn  close 
to  the  loop  and  bears  the  weight  of  his  body  upon  it,  at  the  same 
time  drawing  the  ends  of  the  broomcorn  as  tight  as  possible. 
When  he  ties  the  head  of  the  broom  with  twine  he  places  the 
bundle  of  broomcorn,  which  at  this  stage  is  almost  round,  into 


BROOM    MAKING    BY    HAND  315 

a  wooden  clamp.  This  wooden  clamp  consists  of  two  pieces  of 
wood,three  by  fifteen  inches,  with  a  bolt  at  each  end.  He  turns 
down  the  nuts  and  flattens  out  the  broom  and  begins  to  sew  it 
with  a  needle  about  eight  inches  long.  At  one  time  he  used  a 
wooden  needle.  The  broom  being  finished  the  handle  is  sharpened 
at  the  butt  end  and  driven  into  the  head,  or  top,  of  the  broom. 
A  nail  is  driven  through  the  corn  into  the  handle  to  hold  it  se- 
cure.    This  completes  the  making  of  the  broom. 

(Mr.  Scheetz  illustrated  his  paper  by  exhibiting  brooms  in  the 
different  process  of  manufacture,  and  answering  many  questions 
concerning  them.) 


Ancient  Methods  of  Threshing  in  Bucks  County. 

BY  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting,   January   15,    1921.) 

BEFORE  the  general  introduction  of  the  threshing  machine, 
1835-1850,  there  were  two  methods  of  threshing  wheat, 
rye  and  other  grain,  in  use  in  Bucks  county,  namely : 

1,  very  commonly  by  means  of  the  flail;  2,  very  rarely  by 
trampling  with  the  feet  of  animals. 

Other  devices  were  in  use  at  that  time  in  Europe  and  probably 
in  the  United  States,  for  instance,  3,  a  grooved  or  spiked  log, 
axeled  at  one  end  to  a  stake,  and  pulled  around  over  the  straw 
in  a  circle  by  an  animal,  called  in  Chester  county  a  "Tumbling 
Tom,"  as  I  was  informed  about  1897  by  the  late  Alfred  Paschal ; 
4,  a  long  flexible  stick  as  used  in  France  (Dauphiny  and  Provi- 
dence), about  1840,  according  to  the  Agricultural  Treatise,  called 
"Maison  Rustique,"  by  Dr.  Alexander  Bixio,  Paris,  1844.  a 
direct  descendant  of  the  Roman  Pertica,  or  threshing  stafif  de- 
scribed by  Pliny  Natural  History,  XVIII,  72.5,  a  fluted  wooden 
roller,  used  in  Lombardy  in  1890  (according  to  Knight's  Amer- 
ican Mechanical  Dictionary),  or  otherwise  a  wagon  on  several 
rollers,  set  around  with  serrated  iron  rings,  on  which  the  driver 
sits,  used  in  Egypt  about  1850,  and  there  called  Noreg.  (See 
Rich's    Companion   to   the    Latin    Lexicon,    Longman's    London, 


316  ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

1848)  a  counterpart  of  the  Plostellum  Punicum  introduced  into 
ancient  Italy  from  Carthage  and  described  by  Varro  Rerum 
Rusticarum  1.51.2.  6,  a  drag  or  frame  on  one  or  more  planks 
shaped  Hke  a  Canadian  toboggan,  roughened  on  the  bottom 
with  flints  or  pieces  of  iron,  and  weighted  with  stones, 
upon  which  the  driver  sits,  drawn  by  oxen,  mules  or  horses  over 
the  straw,  seen  by  travelers  in  use  in  Asia  Minor  about  1850,  (in 
Pictorial  Gallery  of  the  Useful  Arts,  London,  Hart,  Harrower 
&  Co.,  1848),  being  a  survival  of  the  Roman  Tribulum  or  Tribula 
described  in  Varro  Rerum  Rusticarum  1.52.1  and  Pliny  Natural 
History  XVIII.  72  and  Virgil  Georgics  1.164. 

The  writer  has  thus  far  been  unable  to  find  evidence  of  the 
use  of  any  of  these  methods  in  the  United  States  except  the  first 
two,  information  as  to  3  being  only  hearsay.  But  as  the  Amer- 
ican pioneers  at  first  reverted  to  very  primitive  devices,  there  is 
no  reason  why  they  may  not  have  used  4,  5  or  6  and  we  have 
cited  them  here  with  authority  for  the  use  of  future  investigators 
of  this  important  subject,  and  turn  particularly  to  1  and  2. 

THRESHING  BY  THE  TREAD  OF  ANIMALS. 

The  late  Stacy  S.  Weaver,  while  in  my  employ,  told  me  in 
1918,  that  he  had  been  employed  about  1860  to  thresh  grain  by 
leading  horses  over  the  straw,  upon  the  wooden  floor  of  a  log 
barn  on  the  left  bank  of  Tinicum  creek,  about  two  miles  south 
of  Headquarters,  now  Sundale. 

This  is  coroborated  by  William  J.  Buck  in  his  "Local  Sketches 
and  Legends,"  printed  in  1887,  and  also  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  A.  R. 
Home,  The  Pennsylvania  German  (Allentown,  T.  K.  Home, 
1910),  who  quotes  a  Pennsylvania-German  poem,  which  says  in 
only  two  lines  that  the  early  German  settlers  threshed  rye  with 
flails,  and  the  wheat  with  horses  which  they  rode  around  on  the 
straw  for  a  long  time. 

THRESHING  WITH  THE  FLAIL. 

But  as  compared  with  this  comparatively  little  employed  pro- 
cess, the  flail  was  the  well  known  threshing  implement  in  uni- 
versal use  in  Bucks  county  from  its  earliest  settlement  (as  in  the 
United  States  from  the  time  of  Jamestown  and  the  Mayflower). 
to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth   centurv.     This  ancient   instru- 


ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 


317 


ment.  not  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  and  not  probably  used  by  the 
Romans,  has  been  employed  in  Europe  and  Asia  (Japan)  ever 
since   the    Middle   Ages,   although    Capt.   John    Smith   says   that 


the  Turks  used  bats  and  not  flails  in  his  time.  It  consists  of  the 
hand  staff  held  by  the  workman,  and  the  club  which  strikes  the 
grain   (called  "swiple"  by  the  Dictionary  of  Arts  and  Sciences. 


318  ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

1763,  and  "souple"  or  "swiple"  by  Knight,  and  "swipple"  or 
"swingel"  by  Webster.  The  coupling  of  the  former  to  the  latter 
is  variously  constructed  and  imperfectly  described.  It  is  called 
"whang"  (in  Knight)  and  "cupplings")  in  the  Dictionary  of 
Arts  and  Sciences). 

Of  the  many  varieties  of  this  primitive  implement,  the  twenty 
or  more  flails  in  our  museum  show  two  types,  a.  (2  specimens 
right  in  picture.)  Those  with  a  small  swivel  on  the  hand  staff 
to  hold  the  club  or  swingle,  and  b.  those  with  a  knob  and  loop 
on  the  hand  staff  for  the  same  purpose. 

In  our  museum,  No.  8860,  from  Bucks  county,  the  slightly 
tapering  hand  staff  of  hickory  4'  4"  by  1%  to  ^"  thick,  is  en- 
closed at  the  small  end  by  a  very  neat  hickory  swivel  (called 
"heading"  in  Knight)  entirely  enclosing  a  4}^"  wide  circular 
notch  ending  in  a  knob  and  bound  fast  by  two  wires  double 
wound  on  two  outer  shallow  notches.  A  Mr.  Hollenbach  of 
Pipersville  made  swivels  like  these  but  bound  with  leather  thongs 
instead  of  wire,  used  as  he  tells  me  (1920)  by  Harvey  Crou- 
thamel,  about  1890.  The  club  of  this  flail  is  2'  4"  'long  of  oak. 
and  1^"  swelling  to  2^"  thick.  It  is  perforated  at  the  small  end 
with  a  hole  ^4  "  ^^  diameter,  through  which  a  loop,  (called  "middle 
band"  by  the  Dictionary  of  Arts  and  Sciences),  stretching  3",  and 
consisting  of  6  wraps  of  a  single  piece  of  whitish  leather  neatly 
knotted  at  the  ends  connects  it  with  the  wooden  loop  of  the 
swivel  on  the  hand  staff. 

The  construction  of  the  much  heavier  flail.  No.  9646,  with  hand 
staff  of  hickory  5'  long  by  l^^  to  1"  thick  and  a  hickory  club 
2'  5"  long  by  2"  thick,  is  similar,  but  the  hickory  swivel  showing 
bark  is  a  2"  by  1%""  long  strip  bent  over  the  end  of  the  hand  staff 
and  revolving  around  the  three  notches  in  it,  coinciding  with 
three  similar  notches  on  the  staff,  around  which  three  double 
thongs  grasp  first  loosely  the  staff  and  then  tightly  the  swivel. 
The  coupling  from  this  swivel  to  the  club  is  a  three  inch  long 
loop  made  of  two  wraps  of  a  single  leather  >^"  wide  strap  slit  at 
one  end  and  knotted  through  the  slit  at  the  other. 

In  the  similar  lighter  and  smaller  No.  7177,  from  Bucks  county, 
with  oak  staff  and  hickory  club,  the  hickory  swivel  otherwise  re- 
sembling the  former,  has  but  two  notches  coinciding  as  before 
with  notches  on  the  hand   staff   for  its   revolutions  around  the 


ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY  319 

latter,  while  in  No.  3492,  marked  with  the  monogram  AI.  I.  on  the 
club,  from  Bucks  county,  the  similar  two  notched  swivel  is  made 
not  of  wood  but  of  a  heavy  leather  strap. 

The  swivel  on  No.  9643,  from  New  Jersey,  with  hand  staiT  and 
club  of  oak,  is  a  horseshoe  shaped  loop  of  wrought  iron,  revolv- 
ing upon  the  end  of  an  iron  pin  driven  into  the  end  of  the  staff 
and  held  there  with  a  ferule  of  iron. 

Variety  b  (2  specimens,  middle  in  picture)  is  represented  by 
No.  6759  from  Bucks  county,  with  oaken  staff  and  hickory  club, 
where  the  suddenly  tapered  hand  staff  ends  in  a  knob  around 
which  a  leather  thong  is  loosely  tied  in  three  strands  and  con- 
tinued in  a  loop  through  the  hole  in  the  club. 

In  No.  4175,  from  New  Jersey,  all  apparently  of  hickory,  the 
above  mentioned  two  loops  are  not  fastened  with  one  piece  of 
leather  but  with  two.  First  a  thong  is  four  times  wrapped  loosely 
around  the  knob  and  tied,  then  under  this  a  single  strap  passes  in 
the  form  of  a  loop  with  its  two  ends  riveted  wuth  three  copper 
rivets  through  the  hole  in  the  club. 

No.  2797  seems  to  be  a  makeshift,  repaired  with  fish  cord  and 
showing  swivel  notches.  A  strap  is  tightly  looped  so  as  not  to  re- 
volve on  the  notched  end  of  the  hand  staff.  A  heavy  strap  loop 
runs  through  the  club  hole  and  then  a  third  loop  connects  these 
two  loops  so  that  the  whole  instrument,  though  apparently  a 
•makeshift,  seems  to  correspond  to  the  description  of  the  English 
flail  of  1763.  given  in  the  Dictionary  of  Arts  and  Sciences. 

In  our  collection,  the  club  is  always,  but  the  hand  staff  never 
perforated  for  the  attachment  of  the  thongs,  the  movable  loop, 
which  I  here  call  swivel,  always  being  upon  the  hand  staff. 
Harvey  Crouthamel  tells  me  that  he  never  used  or  heard  of  the 
use  of  raw  hide  and  that  though  he  sometimes  oiled  an  iron  swivel 
used  by  him,  he  never  greased  the  thongs. 

I  find  no  raw  hide  thongs  in  our  collection  and  no  eel  skin, 
though  tradition  describes  the  latter  as  used.  Harvey  Crouthamel 
tells  me  that  he  threshed  buckwheat  with  a  flail  for  my  uncle, 
Arthur  Chapman,  about  1900,  one  mile  north  of  Doylestown,  and 
frequently  threshed  wheat,  oats  and  rye  on  farms  in  Bucks 
county  in  the  1880's  and  1890's,  when  one  to  four  persons  laid 
the  sheaves  head  to  head,  threshed,  turned  and  rethreshed  them 
while  still  bound,  then  unbound  the  sheaves,  spread,  threshed  and 


320  ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

turned  and  rethreshed  the  straw,  thus  going  over  it  four  times. 

I  learned  from  Crouthamel  and  Mathias  Hall,  who  have 
worked  with  the  flail,  that  the  sheaves  were  never  thrown  down 
confusedly  on  the  threshing  floor  but  laid  side  by  side  in  rows 
and  where  more  than  one  row  was  threshed  always  placed  head 
to  head.  The  turning  which  consisted  in  laying  the  wheat,  rye 
or  oats  stalks  whether  bound  or  unbound,  when  threshed  out  on 
one  side,  upside  down  so  as  to  get  at  the  bottom  husks,  was  never 
done,  they  said,  with  the  prongs  or  handle  of  a  fork  or  rake,  but 
always  by  grasping  the  loose  straw  or  the  yet  unbound  sheaves 
in  the  arms,  and  lifting  and  replacing  them  in  the  same  position. 
or  behind  the  workman  as  he  turned  round,  or  elsewhere  on  the 
floor,  in  a  fresh  row. 

Our  museum  No.  17153  shows  a  swiveled  flail  bought  by  Mr. 
Francis  C.  Mireau,  in  Montgomery  county  on  November  9,  1920. 
Tied  to  it  is  a  sharpened  hickory  staff  23  inches  long  and  1% 
inches  thick  at  the  base.  This  staff  was  used  according  to  the 
owners  account  to  slide  more  easily  than  the  fingers  under  the 
grain  stalks  in  turning  them  for  threshing.  Then  one  hand 
held  the  staff  while  the  other  grasped  the  straw. 

Probably  all  the  old  threshing  floors  now  remaining  are  made  of 
oak  planks,  and  some  are  pegged  with  wood,  as  in  the  Armitage 
barn  in  Solebury,  built  about  1756,  nevertheless  tradition  and 
Home's  Manual  described  earlier  threshing  floors  which 
Crouthamel  never  heard  of,  made  of  earth. 

Though  the  threshing  machine,  a  revolutionary  invention  of 
tremendous  importance,  as  we  now  know  it,  was,  according  to 
Knight  produced  by  several  inventions,  first  in  Germany  and 
then  in  England  between  1772  and  1782.  it  did  not  get  into  gen- 
eral use  in  Bucks  county  until  about  1850.  Whoever  has  ex- 
amined it  knows  that  it  consists  of  a  metal  cylinder  armed  with 
spikes  which  rapidly  revolves  in  a  close  fitting  circular  case,  also 
furnished  with  spikes  (U.  S.),  or  grooves  (England),  so  as  to 
instantly  tear  and  slash  the  straw  and  unhusk  the  grain. 

At  the  time  of  its  invention,  one  hundred  years  ago,  this 
would  have  completely  superseded  all  the  ancient  forms  of  thresh- 
ing mentioned,  flail  included,  if  a  cheap  and  practical  power 
could  have  been  found  to  turn  it,  but  as  Reese's  Encyclopedia, 
written  about  1800,  says,  wind  mills  only  worked  when  the  wind 


ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY  321 

blew,  fixed  water  power  could  not  be  applied  to  most  barns 
where  there  was  no  water,  and  stearn,  though  introduced  about 
1820  on  large  estates  was  too  expensive,  while  man  turned 
cranks  though  used  and  patented,  were  too  laborious.  The  only 
power  at  first  practically  applied  was  the  so-called  "Lever  Power," 
a  very  large  cogged  horizontal  wheel  turned  by  horses  or  cattle 
on  a  turn  style.  We  bought  one  of  these  from  Mr.  Osborne  at 
Summerseat  at  Morrisville,  for  the  museum  (introduced  accord- 
ing to  Dickson's  Dictionary  of  Agriculture  in  southern  England 
in  1805),  of  date  about  1820  to  30,  and  many  according  to  the  in- 
formation of  T.  S.  Kenderdine,  Mathias  Hall  and  Wilson  Wood- 
man, were  employed  by  rich  farmers  in  Bucks  county  before  1835. 
One  I  myself  saw  at  work,  surviving  upon  a  farm  near  Pooles 
Corner  about  1900,  but  the  device  was  expensive  and  took  up  too 
much  barn  room,  so  that  the  flail  continued  in  full  use  in 
Bucks  county  until  the  general  introduction  of  the  cheap  portable 
and  efificient  so-called  "Tread  Power"  at  last  making  the  thresh- 
ing machine  more  efficient  ( 1835  to  50 )  gradually  superceded  the 
ancient  hand  tool. 

This  "Tread  Power"  is  an  inclined  rolling  platform  on 
which  horses  or  cattle  walk  so  as  to  revolve  a  fly  wheel  at- 
tached to  the  threshing  cylinder  above  mentioned.  According  to 
the  "Farmers  Mechanical  Instructor"  by  Francis  Wiggins 
Rogers.  Philadelphia.  1840,  kindly  shown  me  by  Mr.  Ely,  this 
American  invention  was  in  general  use  in  eastern  Pennsylvania 
between  1835-50,  under  patents  by  Vosburg,  Pitt  and  A\'arren, 
T.  S.  Kenderdine  tells  me  that  his  father  constructed  a  device 
of  this  kind  in  1830  to  turn  a  gristmill  by  oxen  in  Horsham, 
Montgomery  county.  The  apparatus,  he  says,  was  derived  by 
his  father  from  notes  taken  in  Ohio,  and  was  made  entirely  of 
wood  with  an  endless  chain  of  little  wagons  upon  wooden  rollers 
moving  upon  a  wooden  track. 

\Ye  also  have  in  the  museum  two  dog  churn  powers  where  an 
endless  slatted  strap  rolls  on  fixed  wooden  rollers,  the  upper  of 
which  turns  the  fly  wheel,  and  we  have  a  tread  horsepower  like 
those  still  (1920)  in  use,  manufactured  by  Wm.  H.  Murray  at 
his  agricultural  machine  factory  at  New  Hope,  about  1859,  w^here 
an  endless  chain  of  little  wagons  is  mounted  on  cast  iron  wheels 
cogged  in  a  power  wheel.     Mr.  Kenderdine  also  says  that  a  ma- 


322  ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

chine  of  this  kind  was  used  for  his  father,  John  E.  Kenderdine,  in 
1842.  and  was  probably  made  by  Cook  and  Thropp  at  their 
mills  at  Wells  Falls,  New  Hope,  Bucks  county. 

Thus  the  flail  went  out  of  general  use  in  Bucks  county  about 
1850  but  it  was  not  completely  abandoned.  It  survived  here 
until  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  to  thresh  rye,  and 
did  so  because  the  Bucks  county  farmer  had  long  used  and  still 
preferred  flail  threshed  rye  straw,  untorn  by  the  threshing  ma- 
chine, for  the  very  important  and  universal  purpose  of  binding 
his  corn. 

In  this  work  the  apparatus  attached  in  1890  to  reaping  machines 
for  mechanically  binding  wheat,  rye  and  oats  with  twine  had  not 
helped  him,  for  the  greater  part  of  Indian  corn  continued  to  be  cut 
and  bound  by  hand. ^  The  right  kind  of  twine  was  not  yet  avail- 
able, and  the  rye  stalks  easily  hand  grasped  and  knotted  held 
well  around  the  cornstalks  and  for  a  long  time  continued  to  be 
so  employed  until  the  introduction  about  1895  of  cheap  rolls  of 
tarred  twine,  easily  cut  to  the  desired  length,  finally  superseded 
the  rye  straw.     Then  the  flail  disappeared. 

In  the  meantime  I  learned  from  Harvey  Crouthamel  that 
until  about  1900  some  of  our  small  farmers,  not  owning  thresh- 
ing machines,  sometimes  threshed  buckwheat  with  flails  as  he, 
.Crouthamel,  did  for  my  uncle,  Arthur  Chapman,  about  1905. 
Or  that  when  horse  feed  ran  out  on  larger  farms,  oats  in  small 
quantities  was  thus  threshed  as  a  makeshift,  and  Clarence  Rosen- 
berger  tells  me  that  until  about  1905  there  was  a  small  demand 
for  flail-threshed  straw  in  Philadelphia,  for  use  as  bedding  for 
high  bred  horses.  Now  (1921)  the  farmer  can  buy  buckwheat 
meal  in  bags  at  country  stores  and  has  generally  ceased  to  grow 
it  for  his  own  table  use.  The  motor  car  has  largely  superseded 
the  horse  in  Philadelphia,  and  unless  the  flail  is  still  occasionally 
used  for  horse  feed,  these  requirements  have  probably  all  ceased 
and  could  hardly  have  kept  the  flail  in  general  use.  But  after 
all  they  were  secondary  needs.  It  was  the  tarred  twine  that 
finally  abolished  the  ancient  instrument  about  1905.  so  that  now 

^  In  1887  the  first  patents  were  taken  out  for  corn  harvesters,  but  the}^ 
remained  in  an  experimental  stage  until  about  1895.  By  1902  the  yearly 
output  had  reached  but  about  44,000.  They  have  not  come  in  general 
use  in  Bucks  and  adjoining  farms. 


ANCIENT  METHODS  OF  THRESHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY  323 

(1921)  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  farmer  in  Bucks  county  uses 
the  flail  for  any  purpose  whatever  though  I  may  be  mistaken. 

Since  the  above  was  written  in  1921  Mrs.  Thomas  Walker  of 
Doylestown,  living  until  1924  at  Peters  Corner,  Solebury  town- 
ship, Bucks  county,  Pa.,  informs  the  writer  (March  19,  1926) 
that  James  Lynn  who  lived  at  Peters  Corners  (go  from  Mechan- 
icsville  on  main  road  leading  east  to  Cuttalossa  through  Peters 
Corner,  turn  right  at  corner,  first  house  left),  and  died  there  in 
1924,  used  a  flail  for  threshing  all  his  small  (c.  1  acre)  crops  of 
wheat,  rye  and  oats,  certainly  in  1923,  and  possibly  in  1924  or 
until  about  the  time  of  his  death.  He  kept  a  horse,  but  did  not 
own  either  a  threshing  machine  or  a  "Horse  Power",  (Tread 
Power)  apparatus  as  used  by  other  farmers  for  working  the 
former.  He  had  once  recently  hired  (at  a  minimum  cost  of  ten 
dollars  per  day),  a  gasoline  power  turned  threshing  machine, 
but  found  it  too  expensive  for  his  small  crops.  Some  of  his 
grain,  thus  hand-threshed,  he  had  ground  for  bread  flour  or  ani- 
mal food  at  Armitages  water-power  gristmill  on  Cutalossa  creek 
in  Solebury  township. 

While  correcting  the  final  proof  sheets  for  this  paper,  in 
August  1926,  I  learn  from  the  Doylestown  Agricultural  Works, 
Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.,  of  Riegelsville,  Levi  Yoder  of  Silver- 
dale,  and  Henry  W.  Gross  of  Doylestown,  that  similar  rare,  and 
generally  unheard  of,  instances  of  the  survival  of  the  flail  among 
very  small  farmers  in  Bucks  and  its  adjoining  counties,  would 
probably  be  found  on  diligent  search.  The  Rev.  David  Gehman 
of  Fbuntainville,  with  wide  experience  among  the  Pennsylvania 
German  farmers,  as  a  Mennonite  minister,  cites  another  supposed 
still-continuing  use  of  the  flail  in  upper  Bucks  County,  namely  to 
thresh  rye  straw,  as  preferred  stuffing,  for  bed  mattresses,  and 
Mrs.  Frank  K.  Swain  of  Doylestown,  says  that  her  father  used 
the  flail  for  that  purpose,  at  his  farm  near  Gardenville  about  1900. 


Passing  Events  (Paper  No.  1). 

BY    FRANK    K.    SWAIX,    DOVLESTOWN,    PA. 

(Doylestown   Meeting,   January    15,    1921.) 

INTRODUCTION. 

THE  following  notes,  the  first  of  a  series,  have  been  made  to 
show  that  in  the  whirligig  of  time  many  old  customs  die  out 
and  new  ones  take  their  places,  which  in  turn  give  way  to 
other  new  inventions  and  appliances.     Often  machines  did  not 
come  into  general  use  until  long  after  they  were  invented  and 
patented. 

These  notes  may  seem  trivial  and  foolish  to  many  of  you  today 
who  may  be  familiar  with  everything  mentioned,  as  the  period 
which  I  am  reviewing  begins  as  late  as  1880,  and  extends  down 
to  the  present  time.  However,  if  three  or  four  customs  of  the 
past,  or  machines  are  selected  that  have  been  introduced  in  our 
time,  and  we  try  to  name  the  exact  date  when  first  seen  or 
used,  it  will  be  found  that  we  cannot  guess  the  right  date 
within  from  two  to  six  years.  How  many  who  saw  Glen 
Curtis  fly  for  the  first  time  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia,  can 
tell  what  year  it  happened?  or  when  we  saw  the  first  trolley-car 
or  automobile,  electric  light,  Christmas  tree,  chewing  gum,  mov- 
ing pictures  or  ice  cream  cones  ? 

Trolley  Roads.  The  Bucks  County  Railway  Company 
started  to  lay  their  tracks  from  Willow  Grove  to  Doylestown  in 
1897  and  completed  them  in  March,  1898,  according  to  informa- 
tion of  Mr.  A.  A.  Mitten  of  the  Rapid  Transit  Company.  The 
first  passenger  car  entered  Doylestown  on  a  hot  afternoon  in 
May,  of  that  year,  running  up  as  far  as  State  street.  A  large 
crowd  quickly  gathered  and  Mr.  George  P.  Brock,  a  promoter, 
who  was  on  the  car,  asked  the  people  to  get  on  and  take  a  free 
ride,  which  they  did,  thinking  they  would  be  taken  to  Bridge 
Point  and  returned.  The  car  went  down  Main  street  as  far  as 
Mr.  John  Hart's  residence  where  the  people  were  ordered  ofif, 
as  the  car  would  not  return,  much  to  the  disgust  of  several  stout 
women  who  were  obliged  to  walk  up  the  long  hill,   in  the  hot 


PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    l)  325 

afternoon  sun,  laden  with  well  filled  market  baskets.  The  cars 
were  of  the  short,  four  wheeled  "dinkey"  type  with  revolving- 
chairs  covered  with  matting.  These  were  considered  fine  at  first 
but  later,  when  the  catches  were  worn  out  they  would  revolve 
without  warning  when  the  cars  rounded  a  curve  and  you  never 
knew  whose  lap  you  would  be  thrown  into.  The  terminus  was 
on  State  street,  in  front  of  the  Fountain  House  yard  and  the 
waiting  room  was  on  State  street  in  the  building  connected  with 
the  Fountain  House  livery.  Trolley  roads  in  the  country  were 
new  at  that  time  and  it  was  very  pleasant  to  ride  through  the 
beautiful  rolling  country,  down  the  York  road,  past  fine  estates 
with  well  kept  lawns  which  could  not  be  seen  from  the  steam 
railroad.  The  fare  was  thirty-five  cents  from  Doylestown  to 
Market  street,  Philadelphia,  while  the  steam  road  fare  was  $1.14. 
The  cheapness  of  the  trip,  aside  from  the  pleasure,  enabled  the 
country  people  to  go  to  town  several  times  a  year  to  do  their 
shopping  instead  of  buying  in  Doylestown  and  the  cars  ran  well 
filled  for  years.  Two  or  three  years  later  the  company  went 
into  the  hands  of  a  receiver,  as  many  trolley  companies  do.  and 
later  became  the  property  of  the  Philadelphia  Rapid  Transit 
Company,  which  owns  it  at  the  present  time.  Two  years  before 
that  road  was  built,  or  in  May,  1896,  Willow  Grove  Park  opened. 
The  trolley  road  from  Philadelphia  to  that  popular  amusement 
resort  having  been  finished  in  1895.  Large  coaches  left  the 
Fountain  House,  Doylestown,  every  Sunday  at  noon  carrying 
passengers  to  \\'illow  Grove,  returning  at  midnight,  for  fifty  cents 
the  round  trip,  until  the  Doylestown  trolley  was  built. 

The  Easton  trolley  road  was  finished  from  Easton  to  Revere 
and  from  Doylestown  to  Red  Hill  in  the  spring  of  1904.  Old 
broken  down  hacks  from  Doylestown  were  used  to  carry  passen- 
gers over  the  connecting  link  from  Red  Hill  to  Revere  until  the 
road  was  completely  finished.  Instead  of  following  the  turn- 
pike out  of  Doylestown  the  cars  left  Main  street  at  the  foot  of 
Germany  Hill  (owing  to  an  injunction  against  them),  going  out 
Lacey  avenue  and  through  fields  to  the  Grove  place  near  Cross 
Keys  Hotel,  although  the  track  extended  out  North  Main  street 
to  the  Dublin  pike  where  there  was  a  dead  end.  The  company 
had  to  run  a  car  to  that  terminus  once  a  month  to  hold  its 
right-of-wav.     The  first  car  ran  to  the  Dublin  oike  on  Christmas 


326  PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l) 

Day  1904.  Later  a  new  law  overrode  the  injunction  and  allowed 
the  company  to  extend  its  tracks  from  the  Dublin  pike  to  meet 
the  elbow  at  the  Grove  place.  This  was  finished  late  in  Novem- 
ber, 1907,  and  the  field  route  was  then  abandoned.  In  May,  1904. 
before  any  regular  cars  ran,  a  test  was  made  with  one  of  the 
large  passenger  cars  well  filled  with  directors  and  officers.  The 
car  went  to  Danboro  and  returned  with  a  workman  sitting  on 
the  roof  watching  the  trolle3\^  As  it  rounded  the  sharp  curve  at 
the  Grove  place,  going  at  a  great  rate  of  speed,  the  man  was 
thrown  against  a  tree  then  to  the  ground  breaking  several  bones. 
Aaron  Kratz  and  Harry  Shoemaker  were  among  the  promoters. 
This  road  too  went  into  the  hands  of  receivers  in  a  short  time. 
It  was  in  fact  in  the  hands  of  receivers  at  two  different  times. 
The  length  of  this  road  from  Doylestown  to  Easton  is  thirty-one 
miles. 

The  Newtown  trolley  road,  always  out  of  order  and  called 
the  "Sunshine"  trolley  was  built  in  1902.  It  was  very  convenient, 
though  uncertain,  for  people  living  in  Bristol  and  the  lower  end 
of  the  county  who  were  obliged  to  attend  court,  as  there  was  no 
direct  train  service  to  the  county  seat.- 

While  the  track  was  being  laid  on  Green  street,  Doylestown. 
an  open  work-car  was  left  by  the  workmen  at  Ashland  street  each 
evening.  Boys  of  the  town  would  jump  on  this  car,  release  it  and 
it  would  run  down  the  steep  hill  to  the  Todd  farm  where  they 
would  jump  off  and  push  it  up  the  hill  and  repeat  the  trip.  One 
evening  when  it  was  heavily  loaded  and  going  at  high  speed  it 
jumped  the  track,  struck  a  telephone  pole  snapping  it  oft' 
like  a  pipe  stem  and  scattering  the  boys  in  all  directions.  Some 
were  badly  injured,  and  carry  marks  to  this  day.  Others  were 
unconscious  and  helpless  for  a  long  time,  while  several  had  bones 
broken.    This  put  a  stop  to  the  night  rides. 

From  1896  to  1900  cars  were  chartered  for  evening  picnics  by 
lodges,  societies  or  private  parties.  Open  cars  were  generally 
used  which  were  gaily  decorated  with  strings  of  fed,  white  and 
blue  lights,  and  carried  noisy  parties  to  any  point  on  the  line, 
returning  at  a  given  time.  The  cars  made  no  stops  and  took  on 
no  passengers.     The  custom  died  out  completely  by  1902. 

1  The  small  wheel  which  comes  in  contact  with  the  feed  wire  Is  called  a 
trolley,  and  from  that  wheel  the  trolley  car  takes  Its  name. 

2  This  trolley  road  was  abandoned  and  tracks  removed  in  November,  1923. 


PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l)  327 

Reaping.  Down  to  1889  Washington  Radcliffe  and  William 
A.  Swain  of  Buckingham,  mowed  all  their  grass  with  a  scythe 
and  all  their  rye,  wheat,  oats  and  buckwheat  with  a  cradle. 
Grain  was  tied  with  straw  by  hand.  Grass  was  raked  with  a 
hand  rake  and  the  flail  was  used  for  threshing  all  grain  until  the 
autumn  of  1888  when,  on  account  of  the  illness  of  W.  A.  Swain, 
William  Sine  of  Lahaska,  who  had  a  traveling  thresher,  run  In- 
horse  power,  came  and  threshed  the  grain.  This  was  the  hrst 
time  a  threshing  machine  was  used  on  the  place.  Because  the 
farms  and  barns  were  small  these  customs  had  been  continued 
long  after  the  advent  of  machinery. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph  Neff,  natives  of  Germany,  who  lived  at 
Spring  Valley,  reaped  all  their  grain  with  a  sickle  as  late  as  1890. 
The  writer  watched  Mrs.  Neff  reap  wheat  with  a  sickle  on  July 
4,  1887,  in  the  field  on  the  left  as  you  ascend  the  hill  back  of 
Stevers  mill.  Mr.  Neff  was  a  cooper  and  could  be  seen  anv 
autumn  day  fixing  over  old  cider  or  vinegar  barrels  in  front  of 
his  barn  at  Stevers  mill. 

Hav-p.aileks.  Edward  H.  pjlackfan  of  Solebury.  informed  me 
that  he  owned  and  used  in  1890,  an  old  Ertle-Victor  hay- 
bailer,  called  a  half  circle,  continuous  press  run  by  two  horses 
in  a  half  circle.  He  believes  this  was  the  first  portable  hay  press 
used  in  middle  Bucks  county.  Before  that  date  hay  was  either 
hauled  to  Philadelphia  market  or  to  large  hay  pressing  houses. 
built  at  railroad  stations  where  it  was  pressed  and  shipped  away 
in  box  cars.  In  1895  George  Brown  brought  a  portable  hay-bailer 
to  the  Edward  H.  Williams  farm  near  Centreville,  where  the 
writer  was  then  living,  and  bailed  the  hay  as  it  came  from  the 
barn.  Several  farmers  nearby  drove  in  to  see  the  process  as  it 
was  new  at  the  time. 

Silos.  Edward  H.  Blackfan  also  advises  me  that  Eugene  Pax- 
son,  above  Lumberville,  built  the  first  silo  known  here.  It  was 
a  square  pit  built  of  stones,  like  a  cistern,  about  twenty  feet  deep 
and  was  certainly  used  in  1880.  Green  cornfodder  was  cut  and 
the  pit  filled,  but  it  was  not  a  success  because  the  ensilage  spoiled 
in  the  corners.  The  word  silo  was  used  for  some  time  before 
many  knew  just  what  the  process  of  making  ensilage  was  like 
or  how  it  was  used.    In  1898.  when  the  Dovlestown-W'illow  Grove 


328  PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    l) 

trolley  road  was  started,  passengers  noticed  two  high,  round, 
windowless  towers  near  the  barn  on  the  Paul  Valley  Farm  near 
Neshaminy  and  although  many  asked  what  they  were  for,  no 
one  could  give  a  satisfactory  answer  until  one  day  a  stranger 
said  they  were  silos,  a  new  idea  that  seemed  to  come  in  from  the 
west.  This  shows  they  were  not  generally  known  at  that  time 
but  by  1905  a  good  many  farmers  had  them.''  They  would  club 
together  and  order  perhaps  fifty  or  more  so  all  could  be  sent  at 
once.  When  they  arrived  at  the  station,  the  farmers  would  as- 
semble from  all  directions,  sort  out  and  load  their  pieces  of  silo, 
which  were  of  wood,  have  dinner  at  the  Railroad  House  and  a 
lively  time,  at  that,  after  which,  a  long  string  of  teams  w^ould 
form  and  pass  like  a  parade  through  the  town  on  the  way  home. 
These  were  silo  frolics  and  continued  until  about  1915.  The 
hollow  tile  silo  came  into  use  about  1916  although  there  are  not 
many  at  the  present  time  (1921)  but  they  will  probably  replace 
the  old  wooden  ones  entirely.  When  built  they  look  very  old, 
mysterious  and  attractive.  The  first  ones  noticed  by  the  writer 
were  built  near  Solebury  Mountain  in  1917,  two  near  Wycombe 
in  1918  and  one  on  the  Albert  Larue  farm  near  Doylestown  in 
1918,  to  replace  a  wooden  one. 

Gasoline  Engines.  Mr.  Blackfan  informs  me  that  the  first 
portable  gasoline  engine  used  in  Solebury  township,  and  probably 
the  first  in  middle  Bucks  county,  was  sold  by  Mr.  Blackfan  to 
Hugh  Michener  of  Solebury,  in  1900.  It  was  marked  "The  Olds, 
Type  E,"  made  by  the  father  of  R.  E.  Olds,  the  automobile  manu- 
facturer, and  was  used  for  threshing,  grinding  feed,  pumping 
water,  sawing  wood,  etc.,  and  was  still  in  running  condition  in 
1920.  Mr.  Blackfan  believes  the  Olds  was  the  first  gasoline 
engine  built  in  the  country  and  certainly  the  first  used  in  this 
county.  By  1910  it  had  largely  replaced  the  horsepower  and 
steam  engine  on  farms  where  these  had  been  used,  as  well  as 
supplying  power  to  many  shops,  pump  houses  and  some  factories. 

Tractor  Plows.  The  first  tractor  and  plow  used  in  Bucks 
covmty  was  bought  by  Hugh  Michener,  west  of  New  Hope,  in 
Soleburv  township,  in  1910.     It  was  manufactured  in  Blue  Bell, 

z  Dr.  B.  F.  Packenthal.  Jr..  advises  me  that  he  was  the  first  to  build  a 
silo  in  upper  Bucks  county,  having  built  one  in  1891,  on  his  farm  in  Durham 
township.  It  attracted  the  attention  of  many  farmer.s  and  others  for  miles 
around  who  went  to  inspect  it. 


PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    l)  329 

Lancaster  county,  Pa.,  and  was  known  as  the  Shirk  Tractor 
Plow,  having  a  single  cylinder  gasoline  engine,  propelling  itself 
and  answered  for  harrowing,  rolling  and  other  purposes.  Ed- 
ward H.  Blackfan  of  New  Hope,  was  the  agent  for  this  tractor. 
Blue  Bell  was  the  first  trading-post  where  cattle  were  hrought 
from  the  west  and  sold  to  dealers  in  the  east. 

The  first  field  plow  operated  with  a  tractor,  seen  by  the  writer, 
was  on  the  farm  on  the  left  as  you  ascend  Crawfords  Hill  going 
south,  below  Bennets  Corner,  in  the  autumn  of  1917.  Frederick 
Blair  Jaekel  owned  and  used  one  on  the  Glen  Echo  Farm  at  Pine 
Run  in  1918,  since  which  time  many  have  been  in  use  in  Bucks 
county.  In  1920  there  were  demonstrations  of  various  makes  on 
several  farms  in  the  county. 

Milkmen.  The  milkman  of  1880  went  about  in  an  ordinary 
wagon  with  one  or  two  milk  cans,  a  smaller  vessel  which  he  car- 
ried into  the  house,  shaped  like  a  milk  can  but  having  a  handle 
like  a  bucket,  with  a  long  handled  ladel  inside  reaching  to  the  top 
of  the  can.  Sometimes  the  customers'  empty  kettle  or  pitcher 
was  waiting  in  a  little  box  nailed  on  the  fence  at  the  gate  or  he 
would  go  to  the  porch  or  back  door,  remove  the  lid,  hanging  it 
on  the  ear  of  the  kettle  while  with  the  long  handled,  dripping, 
pint  dipper  he  ladeled  out  the  milk  fresh  from  his  own  farm  that 
morning.  He  always  gave  an  extra  shallow  dip  at  the  end  to 
make  up  for  any  poor  measuring.  Cream  and  skim  milk  were 
carried  in  smaller  kettles.  The  milk  had  to  be  stirred  up  before 
dipping  so  everybody  got  their  share  of  cream.  Sometimes  he 
had  butter,  eggs  and  cottage  cheese,  rhubarb  and  horseradish  for 
sale.  Many  a  cat  got  its  head  fast  in  a  pitcher  sitting  on  a  porch 
and  could  not  get  away  from  it,  some  have  been  drowned  in  a 
pint  of  milk.  Frank  Mann  was  one  of  these  farmer  milkmen. 
In  1894  there  were  regular  milk  dealers  who  bought  their  milk 
from  farmers  and  did  nothing  else  but  deliver  it.  The  same  kind 
of  buckets,  cans  and  dippers  such  as  I  have  described,  were  used, 
but  a  wagon,  open  on  the  sides  as  at  present,  was  used  in  place 
of  the  little  market  wagon  of  the  farmer.  Maurice  Gunnagan 
was  a  milkman  of  this  type.  Then  in  1906  the  quart  and  pint 
milk-bottles  came  in  and  the  old  kettles  and  dippers  disappeared. 
We  had  just  learned  about  microbes  and  bacteria  and  these  bottles 
were  supposed  to  be  sanitary  and  as  the  milk  was  put  in  them 


330  PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l) 

fresh  from  the  cow,  each  person  felt  they  were  getting  their  full 
share  of  cream.  Boxes  held  the  bottles  on  the  wagons  and  wire 
racks  were  used  to  carry  them  to  the  kitchen  as  at  the  present 
time.  Fred  Himmelwright  was  probably  the  first  to  use  the  bot- 
tles in  Doylestown.  Horses  knew  which  were  the  milkmens 
customers  and  would  zigzag  across  the  street  or  follow  him 
along  the  route. 

Butchering  About  1890.  In  the  autumn  the  farmer's  pork- 
barrel  was  nearly  empty  and  with  the  coming  of  cold  weather 
the  hog  was  fed  on  new  corn  nubbins  until  he  became  so  fat  he 
could  scarcely  move  or  see.  Preparations  were  then  made  for  the 
winter  butchering.  The  women  laid  aside  their  usual  work,  took 
up  the  kitchen  carpet  or  put  down  another  layer  of  old  rag  car- 
pets over  it.  The  men  laid  the  wagon  house  door  on  two  trestles 
or  on  the  old  sled-runners  for  a  scafifold  near  the  barn  and  placed 
a  barrel  at  one  end,  tilted  at  an  angle  of  45  degrees  to  hold  the 
water  for  scalding.  While  the  water  was  heating  in  wash  boilers 
on  the  stove  in  the  outkitchen  or  in  large  iron  kettles  over  the 
open  fire  in  the  kitchen  or  often  out  doors,  the  butcher  knives, 
probably  made  of  old  files  by  a  blacksmith,  were  given  a  final 
whetting.  In  some  cases  large  stones  were  heated  in  an  open 
fire  and  thrown  into  the  barrel  of  cold  water  thus  heating  it.  A 
rope  was  tied  around  the  pig's  leg  or  with  one  of  the  iron  hog 
catchers  on  a  pole  (now  shown  in  this  museum),  he  was  lead  out 
and  killed  by  sticking  a  sharp  knife  in  his  throat.  Some  men 
were  better  pig-stickers  than  others.  The  scalding  water  was 
then  emptied  into  the  barrel  and  the  pig  ducked,  first  head  then 
tail  end,  which  loosened  the  bristles  so  they  were  easily  scraped 
away  with  old  dull  com  knives  or,  better  still,  with  the  sharp  edge 
of  the  disk  or  bottom  of  a  wrought  iron  candlestick.  Nearly  all 
these  handsome  candlesticks  after  serving  their  original  purpose 
for  years  descended  from  the  kitchen  mantel  to  the  hog  scafi'old 
and  this  last  usefulness  alone  saved  them  from  the  scrap  heap. 
Ashes  were  thrown  in  the  water  to  help  this  process,  hog  hooks 
and  gambols  were  also  used  and  later  the  hog  was  hung  head 
down  in  the  wagon  house,  cut  up  into  quarters,  when  cold,  and 
carried  into  the  house.  Hams,  shoulders,  jowls,  chine,  pork  and 
spare-ribs  were  put  in  the  pork-barrel  and  covered  with  a  brine  of 
salt,   sugar  and  saltpetre,   the   latter  giving  the   meat   a   reddish 


PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l)  331 

tinge.  The  women  ground  sausage  meat  and  stutTed  it  in  entrails. 
cloth  bags  or  as  late  as  1890  it  was  formed  like  an  ear  of  corn 
and  placed  in  clean  new  corn  husks.  Scrapple  (pon-hoss)  was 
boiled,  mince  meat,  lard  and  hogshead  cheese  were  made.  The 
grease  from  the  latter  was  removed  and  bottled  and  later  used 
to  rub  on  the  throats  of  children  suffering  with  the  croup. 
Sometimes  sausage  was  highly  seasoned  with  sage,  rolled  in  the 
thin  skin  of  the  leaf -lard,  smoked  and  hung  from  the  cellar 
rafters,  boiled  in  the  summer,  sliced  thin  and  served  cold.  The 
best  hams  were  those  salted  on  a  board,  called  dry  curing.  The 
ham  was  weighed  and  a  certain  proportion  of  salt,  sugar  and  salt- 
petre rubbed  into  it.  This  was  a  method  that  some  had  no  suc- 
cess with  as  the  salt  was  not  properly  rubbed  in  and  the  meat  be- 
came tainted  at  the  bone.  Whether  cured  in  brine  or  on  the 
board  the  meat  was  smoked  later,  either  in  a  barrel  placed  over 
a  smouldering  fire  or  hung  above  the  lintel  beam  in  the  chimney 
of  an  open  fireplace  or  in  a  smokehouse.  Sassafras  twigs  and 
leaves  were  supposed  to  produce  a  sweeter  smoke  than  anything 
else.  After  smoking  the  hams  were  wrapped  in  paper,  sewed  up 
in  muslin  bags  and  packed  away  in  barrels  in  a  dry  place  to  pre- 
vent maggots  (called  "skippers")  from  getting  into  the  ends. 

By  the  time  this  work  was  done  the  whole  family  was  pretty 
greasy,  though  happy.  The  kitchen  was  then  scrubbed  up,  the 
tins  polished  with  wood  ashes  and  with  a  well  filled  pork-barrel, 
enough  to  last  a  year,  the  big  event  of  the  winter  came  to  an  end. 
Sometimes  a  beef  was  fattened  and  killed  at  the  same  time,  part 
of  which  was  salted  down  or  corned  for  use  in  the  summer.  This 
butchering  continued  on  the  farm  until  1900  at  which  time  farm- 
ers said  it  did  not  pay  to  raise  hogs  as  large  hog  farms  and  pack- 
ing houses  in  the  west  lowered  the  price  in  the  east  and  so  they 
bought  their  hams,  many  of  which  were  painted  over  with  a  rank 
liquid  in  place  of  the  old  smoking,  and  pork  took  its  place  in  the 
country  store  with  pasteboard  boxes  of  breakfast  food,  canned 
goods  and  evaporated  fruit,  bakers  bread,  factory  made  pies 
and  cakes,  coffee  ground  and  bagged  for  months,  mince  meat  by 
the  bucket  and  lard  by  the  pound,  all  of  which  had  lessened  the 
duties  on  the  farm  but  had  "canned"  the  people,  all  of  whom 
lived  day  by  day  so  that  a  farmer  today  would  starve  to  death 
in    a    blizzard    if    shut    off    from    the    countrv    store,    in    about 


332  PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    l) 

two  weeks.  Meanwhile  the  old  pork-barrel,  once  the  pride  of 
every  farmhouse,  almost  as  necessary  as  the  kitchen  fireplace, 
dried  up  and  was  taken  to  the  orchard  to  serve  as  a  chicken  coop 
until  the  staves  fell  in  and  the  heavy  iron  hoops  were  sold  to  the 
junk  dealer.  The  smoke-house  stands  roofless  or  gone,  the 
butcher-knives  have  rusted  on  the  top  shelf  of  the  kitchen  closet 
and  the  ham  hooks,  gambrels  and  iron  candlestick-scrapers  have 
disappeared.  Pig  raising  was  revived  about  four  years  ago 
thanks  to  the  farm  bureau  which  offered  prizes  to  the  boy  or 
girl  in  each  district  who  could  raise  the  largest  pig  in  a  given 
time.  The  farmer  again  stocked  up  so  we  now  have  large  pens 
of  pigs  on  almost  every  farm  but  the  pork-barrel  has  not  come 
back  as  the  farmer  sells  his  hogs  to  the  butcher  and  buys  his  hams. 
In  1894  farmers  were  using  a  patented  hog  scalder  which  was 
made  of  cast  iron  like  a  large  bathtub,  with  a  firebox  under- 
neath into  which  long  sticks  of  wood  were  placed.  The  water 
heated  very  quickly.  One  farmer  in  a  neighborhood  would  buy 
one  and  rent  it  to  his  neighbors.  This  replaced  the  scalding 
barrel. 

Fences.  My  information  concerning  fences  is  partly  from  per- 
sonal observation,  and  partly  from  information  given  to  me  by 
Mr.  Edward  H.  Blackfan  and  Mr.  William  Watson  of  Mechanics- 
ville.  The  earliest  fences  were  probably  the  snake  or  worm 
fences,  so  called  on  account  of  their  zigzag  shape,  like  the 
wriggling  movements  of  snakes  and  worms.  These  were  built 
of  rough  wood  either  round  or  of  young  trees,  split  in  two  and 
laid  several  courses  high  and  fortified  by  driving  two  pieces  of 
wood  into  the  ground  in  the  shape  of  an  X  over  the  crossed 
joints,  then  laying  two  more  courses  in  the  notch  of  the  X.  The 
zigzag  shape  prevented  the  fence  from  toppling  or  being  pushed 
over  easily  and  as  the  rails  were  close  together  a  good  deal  of 
wood  was  required.  At  one  time  they  were  used  to  divide  fields 
and  along  roadsides  but  by  1888  they  had  been  discontinued  al- 
most entirely  except  around  woodlots  or  in  northern  Bucks 
county  where,  at  the  present  time,  a  few  short  stretches  still  re- 
main. The  post  and  rail  fence,  used  contemporaneously  was 
more  substantial  but  required  more  work  in  preparing  and  in 
keeping  in  order.  The  posts  were  hand  hewn,  bored  and  cut 
out  for  either  three  or  four  rails.     These  rails  were  split   from 


PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l)  333 

small  chestnut  trees  and  required  dressing  or  shaving  at  the 
ends  SO  they  would  fit  into  the  mortised  holes.  Holes  were  dug 
in  the  ground  and  the  posts  set,  "when  the  Signs  pointed  down." 
but  all  the  same  after  the  winter  frosts  they  required  resetting 
and  straightening.  The  drain  on  the  forests  was  enormous  and 
many  farm  woodlots  were  completely  used  up.  Another  fence 
was  made  of  posts  and  rails  sawed  at  the  country  sawmills  as 
late  as  1896.  The  rails  were  nailed  to  the  posts  and  covered  with 
a  strip  the  width  of  the  post  and  almost  as  high.  A  wooden 
block  an  inch  wider  than  the  top  of  the  post  and  strip  was  nailed 
on  at  a  slope  and  a  fence  of  this  kind  was  generally  whitewashed. 
In  1880  band  wire  came  into  general  use.  This  was  a  thin  band 
of  galvanized  wire  one-half  inch  wide  and  saw-toothed  or 
notched  on  both  sides  or  edges  and  loosely  twisted  and.  because 
it  was  galvanized  it  lasted  a  long  time.  About  eight  years  later 
or  in  1888  barbed  wire  came  into  general  use.  This  was  made 
up  of  two  strands  of  twisted  wire  with  groups  of  sharp  prongs 
inserted  a  few  inches  apart.  Not  being  galvanized  it  did  not  last 
as  long  as  the  band  wire  but  it  kept  cattle  in  the  fields  much 
better.  In  1888  William  A.  Swain  ran  a  single  row  of  barbed 
wire  along  a  dilapidated  worm- fence  and  the  cows  would  not 
go  near  it.  This  was  the  first  wire  fence  used  on  the  place. 
The  use  of  wire  fastened  to  the  posts  with  galvanized  staples 
saved  not  only  a  lot  of  work  but  a  good  deal  of  wood  which  was 
getting  scarce.  Nothing  but  posts  were  necessary  and  these  could 
be  set  farther  apart.  In  1895  a  straight,  round  wire  was  made 
which  ran  through  a  small  hole  in  the  center  of  the  post  but  was 
not  much  used  as  it  required  more  work  than  stapling.  The 
Page  fence,  with  horizontal  and  perpendicular  wires  forming  a 
mesh  one  foot  square,  came  into  use  about  1905  together  with 
other  wires  and  about  this  time  there  was  a  law  preventing  the 
use  of  barbed  wire  along  the  road;  There  is  a  growing  tendency 
all  over  the  county  to  do  away  with  fences  of  every  kind  both  in 
the  country  and  village.  Alo;ig  the  rocky  ridges  of  Hilltown. 
Plumstead  and  Buckingham  townships,  a  good  many  neat  stone 
walls  were  built  when  the  land  was  cleared.  These  were  set  up 
dry,  or  without  mortar  and  when  once  built  required  no  further 
attention.  Whole  farms  were  divided  with  stone  walls  which. 
lasting  a  hundred  years  or  down  to  1900  were  torn  down,  and 
the  stones  hauled  to  a  stone-crusher  and. used  for  macadam  roads. 


334  PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l) 

Pianos  and  Organs.  Down  to  1887  there  were  cottage  organs 
in  many  country  homes.  Some  of  the  more  prosperous  farmers 
had  old  square  pianos  standing  on  massive  cabriole  legs  that 
required  four  men  to  move  them  and  took  up  a  lot  of  room.  In 
1876  Steinway  &  Son  of  New  York,  built  thirteen  low  upright, 
rosewood  pianos.  The  keyboard  was  supported,  not  on  slender, 
straight  columns  as  at  the  present  time,  but  on  smaller  unshape- 
ly, cabriole  legs  like  those  on  the  old  square  pianos,  showing  the 
first  step  from  the  old  square  to  the  upright.  One  of  these  is 
now  owned  by  the  writer.  In  1887  Miss  Hetty  A.  Walton  bought 
an  upright  piano,  probably  the  first  in  Centreville  or  nearby,  and 
it  was  considered  such  a  novelty  that  some  of  the  Hughesian 
school  children  went  in  to  see  it.  The  cottage  organ  is  no  longer 
sold  or  used  and  the  old  square  piano  sells  very  cheap  and  mostly 
for  the  fine  wood  used  in  it.  A  great  many  upright  pianos  are  in 
use  since  1900  and  pianolas  were  attached  to  a  number  of  pianos 
by  1904.  These  were  screwed  to  the  front  of  the  piano  and 
little  felt  covered  hammers  struck  each  key  when  a  perforated 
music  roll  was  placed  in  the  pianola  and  made  to  revolve  by 
working  foot-pedals.  This  was  very  complicated  and  soon  got 
out  of  order.  It  could  not  be  removed  without  a  good  deal  of 
trouble  and  any  person  able  to  play  the  piano  itself  was  deprived 
of  its  use.  In  1915  a  new  arrangement  came  into  general  use  re- 
placing the  old  upright  piano  and  the  pianola.  This  was  the 
player  piano,  exactly  like  the  upright  and  could  be  played  by  a 
person  or,  by  simply  lowering  a  panel,  inserting  a  music  roll  and 
dropping  foot-pedals  it  would  by  some  internal  arrangement,  pro- 
.  duce  mechanical  music  without  striking  the  keys.  This  could  be 
adjusted  in  a  minute  and  there  are  a  good  many  in  use  at  the 
present  time. 

Clothing.  In  1887,  country  boys  went  to  school  in  leather 
boots,  mittens,  pulswarmers,  tippets  of  gaudy  colored  woolen, 
knit  at  home,  and  little  round  earbobs  that  dropped  down  from 
the  inside  of  the  cap.  Their  clothes  were  home  made  and  showed 
patch  on  patch,  not  always  the  same  color.  Girls  wore  heavy 
calf-skin  shoes,  calico  dresses  and  little  percale  aprons,  woolen 
caps  in  winter  and  sunbonnets  in  summer.  There  were  few  um- 
brellas, rubber  boots  or  rubber  shoes  and  the  row  of  overcoats 
hanging   in   the    vestibule    smelled    strong   of    woodsmoke,    fried 


PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l)  335 

ham,  turnips  and  cabbage,  as  nearly  every  one  at  that  time  lived 
in  the  kitchen,  in  winter.  Factory  made  shoes  and  ready  made 
clothing,  that  cost  but  little,  came  into  general  use  in  1895  and 
changed  all  this. 

Gypsies.  Numerous  bands  of  gypsies  could  be  seen  each  spring 
as  late  as  1900.  after  which  time  they  disappeared  almost  com- 
pletely and  two  or  three  summers  may  now  pass  without  one 
band  appearing.  On  a  very  sultry  Saturday  afternoon  in  August, 
1889,  the  writer  saw  a  large  band  traveling  from  Doylestown  to- 
wards Centreville.  They  stopped  at  the  foot  of  Burnt  House 
Hill  just  as  the  bright  afternoon  was  suddenly  darkened  to  twi- 
light by  inky-black  clouds  that  were  carried  at  a  great  rate  by  a 
terrific  wind.  The  thunder  and  lightening  was  terrible  but  some- 
thing more  than  this  seemed  to  affect  the  gypsies.  One  of  them 
ran  to  the  top  of  the  hill  and  beckoned  the  others  to  follow, 
which  they  did.  the  horses  galloping  up  the  steep  hill,  into  W.  A. 
Swains  open  woods.  A  little  wedge  tent  was  quickly  put  up, 
trenches  dug  on  the  sides,  the  horses  were  hoppled  with  ropes 
and  turned  loose  just  as  a  terrible  downpour  of  rain  completely 
shut  out  everything  and  caused  lamps  to  be  lit  in  all  the  houses. 
An  hour  later  when  the  evening  sun  again  shone  it  was  learned 
that  in  the  heart  of  the  storm  with  its  terrible  thunder  and 
lightning  and  inky  blackness  a  gypsy  child  had  been  born  in  the 
little  tent.  On  Sunday  (the  following  day),  the  women  told  for- 
tunes while  the  men  traded  horses.  A  large  crowd  gathered  be- 
cause this  was  no  ordinary  band  of  gypsies.  There  were  at  least 
fifteen  large  decorated  wagons,  several  plain  ones  taken  in  trade, 
and  fifty  or  more  horses,  several  men  and  as  many  women.  The 
king  or  chief  wore  plumb-colored  corduroy  trousers,  a  plumb- 
colored  waistcoat  with  gold  and  colored  braid,  gold-braided  belt 
and  a  pointed  broad-brimmed  green  hat.  His  word  was  law  and 
the  wagon  he  slept  in  was  wide  and  high  with  little  colored  glass 
windows  on  either  side  of  the  drivers  seat  and  in  the  doors  at  the 
rear.  The  outside  was  paneled  and  gaily  painted.  Inside  there 
was  a  long  comfortable  bunk  or  bed  and  on  all  the  interior  panels 
were  either  painted  landscapes  or  mirrors.  The  sheets,  as  well 
as  the  pillow-cases,  had  rufiles  on  them.  This  wagon  was  dif- 
ferent and  finer  than  the  others  and  used  only  by  the  king  or 
chief  who  drove  the  finest  horses  but  did  not  care   for  them  or 


336  PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l) 

hitch  them  up  himself.  The  man  who  looked  after  the  horses 
had  a  very  long  flexible  whip  of  black  leather  that  tapered  from 
the  end  of  the  handle  to  the  tip  of  the  lash  and  the  whole  thing 
seemed  to  be  in  one  piece.  When  he  w-riggled  it  like  a  snake  it 
produced  sounds  like  a  pack  of  exploding  fire-crackers  or,  hold- 
ing it  high  over  his  head  and  giving  it  a  quick  twist  it  would 
crack  like  a  pistol  causing  every  horse  to  look  up  no  matter  how 
often  he  did  it,  much  to  the  admiration  of  boys  and  some 
horsemen.  The  woods  was  not  a  good  camping  place  as  it  was 
on  the  top  of  a  hill  and  far  away  from  water,  so  on  the  following 
day  they  drove  away.  All  of  them  spoke  English.  Mrs.  Swain, 
out  of  fear,  sold  them  all  her  butter,  eggs,  milk,  and  many  chickens 
which  they  paid  for  in  gold  while  they  stole  all  her  sweet  corn 
and  some  field  corn  and  as  many  potatoes  as  they  needed  be- 
sides pumping  the  well  dry. 

On  a  chilly  spring  day  in  1889  a  band  of  gypsies  passed  down 
the  Doylestown-Centreville  pike  and  stopped  at  Rebecca  Swain's 
house.  A  child,  two  years  old,  entirely  naked,  was  lifted  out  of 
the  wagon  by  a  gypsy  woman,  carried  into  the  house  where  it 
was  fixed  up  with  odds  and  ends  of  children's  clothing.  By  the 
time  they  reached  Otts  Hotel,  in  Centreville,  a  mile  away,  the 
same  child  was  again  naked  and  the  women  of  Centreville  fvir- 
nished  more  clothing.  It  was  learned  later  that  it  had  been 
clothed  at  Mrs.  Frankenfields  at  Mechanics  Valley,  and  by  the 
time  the  band  reached  Pineville  the  child  probably  had  a  larger 
and  more  varied  wardrobe  than  any  person  in  the  county. 

Gypsies  generally  camped  on  Andersons  flats  on  the  north 
side  of  Buckingham  Mountain,  on  the  Mann  farm  and  Gypsy 
Lane  near  Doylestown.  In  1919  a  band  spent  two  weeks  in  the 
woods  south  of  Pools  Corner.  In  ]May,  1918,  the  writer  saw 
gypsies  with  two  wagons  camped  along  the  road  between  Easton 
and  Bethlehem,  there  was  no  woods  along  this  built  up  highway. 
Their  wash  was  drying  on  a  wire  fence  along  the  road  and  they 
were  cooking  breakfast  over  a  wood  fire. 

On  Saturday  morning,  October  16,  1920,  a  band  of  gypsies 
came  down  to  Doylestown  from  Easton,  Pa.,  and  were  held  here 
by  the  police  who  had  received  word  from  the  police  department 
in  Easton  to  detain  them  for  some  misdeeds  committed  there 
until    an    investigation    could    be    made.      The    usual    red    shirts, 


PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  l)  337 

sparkling  jewelry  and  lots  of  babies  were  in  evidence  but  the  old- 
fashioned  gypsy  wagons  were  missing  and  in  their  place  were 
large,  high-powered  automobiles,  a  seven  passenger  Packard,  a 
Pierce  Arrow,  a  Winton  six,  a  Chandler  and  a  Studebaker  and 
as  the  usual  string  of  horses  for  trading  was  out  of  the  question 
with  these  fast  traveling  motors  they  had  given  up  their  chief 
means  of  support.  The  band,  about  fifty  in  number  "parked" 
not  "camped"  in  the  rear  of  a  Doylestown  garage  but  the  two 
women  who  were  w^anted  by  the  Easton  police  did  not  arrive  with 
the  band.  They,  evidently  suspecting  trouble,  had  motored  off 
on  a  side  road  intending  to  rejoin  the  band  later.  All  disappeared 
the  same  day.  When  a  gypsy  abandons  his  gayly  decorated  wagon 
and  string  of  horses  the  charm  is  indeed  broken. 

The  organ  grinder  and  monkey  left  us  before  1905.  Clock  and 
umbrella  menders,  dancing  bears,  bag-pipers  and  the  scissor 
grinder  with  his  little  tinkling  bell  have  disappeared  since  1900. 
The  Mercantile  License  law  ruined  the  country  peddler  and  the 
peculiar  cry  of  the  rag.  bone  and  rubber  man,  who  traded  cheap 
Trenton  made  crockery  for  old  scrap  is  no  longer  heard.  The 
Russian  Jew,  residing  in  almost  ever^'  town  since  1900.  has 
combed  the  country  of  all  scrap  iron  and  a  lot  of  good  iron, 
copper  and  brass.  Punch  as  well  as  Judy  is  dead.  Lantern 
slides  of  "Ten  Nights  in  a  Bar-Room,"  generally  shown  in 
country  churches  by  the  W.  C.  T.  U.,  went  out  of  fashion  before 
1890,  and  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  has  been  crowded  out  of  public 
halls  by  moving  picture  shows  and  is  seldom  seen.  The  medicine 
doctor  with  his  liniment,  pills,  salve  and  free  show  of  "The 
Dance  of  Death,"  "Peck's  Bad  Boy,"  etc.,  no  longer  comes  to 
the  town  hall  or  the  public  square. 

Shad-e-o,  the  long  drawn  cry  of  the  shad  huckster,  stopped  in 
1905  when  the  small  run  of  shad  in  the  Delaware  and  the  large 
run  of  motors  carried  customers  to  the  fisheries  who  bought  every 
fish  at  from  one  to  two  dollars  apiece  instead  of  twenty-five 
cents,  as  in  1890,  so  none  were  left  for  the  hucksters. 

No  one  seems  to  know  what  has  become  of  the  tramps  that 
traveled  the  Old  York  road  in  great  numbers  about  1886.  Farm- 
ers were  afraid  of  tramps  because  there  was  always  the  danger  of 
setting  fire  to  the  barn,  if  they  were  allowed  to  sleep  there,  since 
all  carried  pipes  and  matches,  so  some  gave  their  permission  to 


338  PASSING  EVENTS  ( PAPER  NO.  l) 

sleep  in  the  bams  provided  they  would  hand  over  pipes,  tobacco 
and  matches  until  morning.  Between  1880  and  1900  a  good 
many  barns  were  burned  that  were  supposed  to  have  been  fired 
either  by  tramps  smoking,  or  out  of  revenge  for  having  been 
turned  away  without  food  or  shelter.  Judge  Yerkes  drove 
them  out  for  a  time  with  heavy  sentences  so  that  Bucks  county 
was  a  spot  to  be  avoided  by  them.  That  they  left  signs  and 
signals  for  their  followers  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  certain 
farmers  were  black  listed  while  others  had  steady  customers. 
Although  no  one  seems  able  to  say  just  what  these  signs  were 
unless  small  stones,  placed  on  a  gatepost,  might  be  taken  for  one. 
Few  tramps  had  the  courage  to  go  to  the  residence  of  Mr.  Wil- 
liam R.  Mercer,  St.,  as  they  had  from  three  to  seven  dogs  run- 
ning loose,  and  a  tramp  hates  a  dog.  But  one  with  more  courage 
than  the  rest  walked  to  the  back  door  and  met  Mr.  Mercer  who 
was  not  very  sympathetic  when  tramps  were  around.  Hoping 
to  make  a  favorable  impression  before  asking  for  anything,  he 
looked  around  in  an  admiring  way  over  the  well-kept  lawn  and 
then  said,  "Oh,  this  is  a  most  melodious  place,"  so  amusing  Mr. 
Mercer  that  he  went  into  the  house  and  gave  him  a  fine  coat. 
(Information  of  Dr.  Mercer.)  Another  tramp  and  his  wife  came 
to  the  same  door  and  asked  the  writer  for  a  coat  as  it  was  a 
chilly  rainy  night.  He  got  a  good  one  and  a  hot  supper.  On 
leaving  the  place  the  woman  was  heard  to  remark,  "why  didn't 
you  ask  him  for  shoes  too,  why  he  was  such  a  fool  he  would 
give  you  anything."  Some  women  living  alone  would  have  a 
man's  hat  and  coat  hanging  near  the  door  to  give  a  tramp  the 
impression  that  a  man  was  around  and  Mrs.  Amy  Callendar  of 
Mechanics  Valley,  had  two  or  three  pitchforks  in  the  house  to  be 
used  in  case  a  tramp  worked  his  way  in.  These  were  seen  by 
the  writer  in  1894. 

Agateware,  for  cooking  purposes,  came  into  general  use  about 
1890  and  the  old  tin  vessels,  made  by  the  country  tinsmith,  were 
quickly  discarded  and  with  them  the  traveling  tinker  who  with 
his  little  charcoal  furnace,  acid,  solder  and  soldering  iron  had 
been  a  welcome  caller  because  there  were  several  pieces  of  tin- 
ware to  be  mended  no  matter  how  often  he  came.  They  were 
generally  very  talkative  and  boastful  about  their  work.  One  was 
so  insistent  on  mending  something  that  Mrs.  Edward  Williams 


FIGUREHEAD  OF  CHIEF  TAMMANY  AT  ANNAPOLIS  339 

gave  him  a  student  lamp  that  needed  a  ring  soldered  in  the  bottom 
of  the  deep,  narrow  oil  tank.  He  had  just  declared  that  he  could 
mend  anything  man  had  ever  made.  After  working  for  nearly  an 
hour,  using  up  much  of  his  solder  and  exclaiming  every  three 
minutes,  "well,  that  caps  the  cli-max,"  he  was  obliged  to  melt 
away  the  solder  that  had  nearly  ruined  the  lamp,  pack  up  his  tools 
and  get  away.  Mrs.  Williams  remarked  that  it  "had  capped  his 
climax  and  he  was  not  half  as  smart  as  he  thought  he  was."  He 
made  a  very  deep  bow  and  passed  on.  In  place  of  the  above  we 
now  have  other  things  not  so  amusing.  "Book  and  tree  agents, 
bond  sellers,  workmen's  compensation  inspectors,  factory,  child- 
labor,  boiler  and  fire,  federal,  state  and  municipal  inspectors, 
none  of  which  agree  but  all  worry  us  so  that  we  may  be  happy. 


Figurehead  of  Chief  Tammany  from  the  Old  Ship-of-the 
Line  Delaware,  1820. 

BY    COLONEL    HENRY   D.    PAXSON^    HOLICONG^    PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  June  18,  1921.) 

THAT  which  I  have  to  offer  as  a  contribution  to  this  after- 
noon's entertainment  is  the  presentation  to  the  Bucks 
County  Historical  Society  of  a  picture  of  the  Figurehead  of 
Chief  Tammany,  together  with  a  brief  sketch  of  this  great  Indian 
and  a  few  observations  on  the  subject  of  figureheads.  This  fig- 
urehead was  taken  from  the  old  Ship-of-the-Line  Delaware  when 
it  was  dismantled  many  years  ago  and  now  stands  on  the  campus 
of  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis. 

The  donor  of  this  picture  is  Judge  J.  Willis  Martin,  of  Phila- 
delphia. We  know  Judge  Martin  as  a  distinguished  jurist,  as  a 
foremost  citizen,  and  as  the  governor  of  that  ancient  and  honor- 
able organization  "The  State  in  Schuylkill,"  of  which  society  the 
renowned  Tammany  is  the  patron  saint. 

I  take  it  that  you  will  all  be  interested  in  anything  pertaining 
to  this  distinguished  chieftain.  Bucks  county  and  this  society 
have  a  peculiar  right  in  claiming  him  as  their  own.  He  was  the 
chief  Sachem  of  the  Lenni-Lenape  Indians,  the  ancient  owners 


340  FIGUilEHEAD  OF  CHIP:F  TAMMANY  AT  ANNAPOLIS 

and  occupiers  of  our  soil  at  the  time  of  Perm's  coming.  He  ren- 
dered most  important  service  in  directing  his  people  in  their 
dealings  with  the  proprietary  government  and  his  remains  are 
believed  to  repose  on  the  banks  of  the  Neshaminy  in  a  grave 
now  in  the  keeping  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society. 

The  most  that  we  know  of  Tammany's  personal  character  is 
from  the  pen  of  the  Moravian  missionary,  the  Reverend  John 
Heckewelder.  While  Heckewelder  was  not  a  cotemporary,  he 
lived  many  years  among  the  Delaware  Indians  and  was  familiar 
with  their  traditions.    He  gives  this  word  picture : 

"The  name  of  Tamanend  is  held  in  the  highest  veneration  among 
the  Indians.  Of  all  the  chiefs  and  great  men  which  the  Lenape  na- 
tion ever  had,  he  stands  foremost  on  the  list.  But  although  many 
fabulous  stories  are  circulated  about  him  among  the  whites,  but  little 
of  his  real  history  is  known.  The  misfortunes  which  have  befallen 
some  of  the  most  beloved  and  esteemed  personages  among  the  Indians 
since  the  Europeans  came  amongst  them,  prevent  the  survivors  from 
'  indulging  in  the  pleasure  of  recalling  to  mind  the  memory  of  their  vir- 
tues. No  white  man  who  regards  their  feelings  will  introduce  such 
subjects  in  conversation  with  them. 

All  we  know  of  Tamanend,  therefore,  is  that  he  was  an  ancient  Dela- 
ware chief  who  never  had  his  equal.  He  was  in  the  highest  degree  en- 
dowed with  wisdom,  virtue,  prudence,  charity,  affability,  meekness, 
hospitality,  in  short  with  every  good  and  noble  qualification  that  a 
human  being  may  possess.  He  was  supposed  to  have  had  an  inter- 
course with  the  great  and  good  spirit,  for  he  was  a  stranger  to  every- 
thing that  is  bad. 

When  Col.  George  Morgan,  of  Princeton,  in  New  Jersey,  was,  about 
the  year  1776,  sent  b}-  congress  as  an  agent  to  the  western  Indians, 
the  Delawares  conferred  on  him  the  name  of  Tamanend,  in  honor  and 
remembrance  of  their  ancient  chief  and  as  the  greatest  mark  of  re- 
spect which  they  could  show  to  that  gentleman,  who  they  said  had 
the  same  address,  affability  and  meekness  as  their  honored  chief,  and 
therefore  ought  to  be  named  after  him. 

The  fame  of  this  great  man  even  extended  among  the  whites,  who 
fabricated  numerous  legends  respecting  him,  which  I  never  heard,  how- 
ever, from  the  mouth  of  an  Indian,  and  therefore  believe  to  be  fabu- 
lous. In  the  Revolutionary  war  his  enthusiastic  admirers  dubbed  him 
a  saint,  and  he  was  established  under  the  name  of  St.  Tammany,  the 
Patron  Saint  of  America.  His  name  was  inserted  in  some  calendars 
and  his  festival  celebrated  on  the  first  day  of  May  in  every  year." 

Of  Tammany's  relations  with  the  state,  we  have  authentic  ac- 
counts. We  know  that  by  several  deeds  he  conveyed  to  William 
Penn  as  proprietor  and  governor,  much  of  the  land  nov\^  com- 


FIGUREHEAD    OF    CHIEF    TAMMANY 
From    the   Old   Ship-of-the-Line   Delaware,    1820 

From  a  photograph  made  in  1920,  in  the  collection  of  Colonel  Henry  D.  Paxson, 

of  the  original  Figurehead  on  the  grounds  of  the  United  States 

Naval  Academy,  Annapolis,  Md. 


FIGUREHEAD  OF  CHIEF  TAMMANY  AT  ANNAPOLIS  341 

prising  Bucks  county.  I  have  here  copies  of  all  of  the  Tammany 
deeds.  If  you  are  the  owners  of  any  of  the  fair  hills  and  valleys 
of  Bucks  county,  you  will  be  interested  because  they  belong  to 
your  title.  If  you  examine  your  old  deeds,  you  may  be  fortunate 
enough  to  trace  them  back  to  the  patent  from  William  Penn. 
but  beyond  the  patent  are  the  deeds  which  Tammany  made  to 
Penn,  so  that  he  is  in  reality  a  predecessor  of  your  title. 

The  first  deed  is  dated  the  "23rd  day  of  ye  4th  month  called 
June  in  ye  year,  according  to  ye  English  account,  1683"  and  in 
it  "Tamanen"  conveys  unto  William  Penn,  all  of  his  "lands  lying 
betwixt  Pemmapecka  and  Nessaminehs  Creeks,  for  ye  considera- 
tion of  so  much  wampum,  so  many  guns,  shoes,  stockings,  look- 
ing glasses,  blankets,  and  other  goods  as  he.  ye  said  William 
Penn,  shall  please  to  give  unto  me." 

This  deed  seems  to  have  been  followed  by  another  deed  of  the 
same  date,  in  which  Metamequan  joins  with  Tamanen  in  a  grant 
to  William  Penn.  of  the  same  lands.  The  receipt  on  the  back 
of  this  deed  enumerates  the  articles  received  by  Tammany  and 
Metamequan  for  the  land  conveyed  to  William  Penn  and  which 
has  been  roughly  estimated  to  be  about  three  hundred  square  miles. 

5  p  Stockings  10  Glasses 
20  Barrs  Lead  5  Capps 
10  Tobacco  Boxes  15  Combs 

6  Coats,  2  Guns  5  Hoes 

8  Shirts,  2  Kettles  9  Gimbletts 

12  Awles  20  Fishhooks 

5  Hatts  10  Tobacco   Tongs 

25  lb.   Powder  10  pr  Sissers 

1  Peck  Pipes  7  half  Gills 

38  yds.  Duffills  6  Axes,  2  Blankets 

16  Knives  4  handfull  Bells 

100  Needles  4  yds  Stroud  Water 

20  handsful  of  Wampum 

The  next  important  paper  was  executed  on  the  15th  of  June, 
1692,  at  Philadelphia,  and  in  this.  King  Taminent  and  three  other 
kings,  Tangorus,  Swampes,  and  Hickoqueon,  acknowledged  that 
they  had  received  from  the  commissioners  of  the  proprietors  full 
satisfaction  for  all  that  tract  of  land  formerly  belonging  to  Tami- 
nent and  others,  which  they  parted  with  unto  William  Penn ; 
the  said  tract  lying  between  Neshaminah  and  Poquessing  upon 
the    River   Delaware   and    extending;-   backwards    to    the    utmost 


342  FIGUREHEAD  OF  CHIEF  TAMMANY  AT  ANNAPOLIS 

bounds  of  the  said  province,  and  in  it,  they  release  the  proprietor 
and  his  heirs  and  successors  "from  any  further  claims,  dues  and 
demands  whatsoever,  concerning  the  said  land  or  any  other  tract 
of  land  claimed  by  us  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the 
day  of  the  date  hereof." 

The  last  deed  from  Tammany  is  dated  July  5,  1697,  and  reads 
as  follows : 

"We  Taminy  Sachimack  and"  Weheeland,  my  brother,  and  Wehe- 
queekhon  alias  Andrew,  who  is  to  be  king  after  my  death,  Yaqueakhon 
alias  Nicholas,  and  Quenameckquid,  alias  Charles  my  sons,  for  us  our 
heirs  and  successors  do  grant  ...  all  the  lands  between  Pemopeck 
and  the  creek  called  Neshaminy  .  .  .  and  extending  in  length  from 
the  River  Delaware  so  far  as  a  horse  can  travel  in  two  summer  days, 
and  to  carry  its  breadth  according  as  the  several  courses  of  the  said 
two  Creeks  will  admit,  and  when  the  said  Creek  do  so  Branch  that  the 
main  branches  or  bodies  thereof  cannot  be  discovered,  then  the  tract 
of  land  hereby  granted,  shall  stretch  forth  upon  a  direct  course  on  each 
side  and  so  carry  on  the  full  breadth  to  the  extent  of  the  length  thereof." 

The  consideration  in  this  deed  consisted  of  "Twenty  Match- 
coats,  Twelve  White  Blankets,  Ten  Kettles,  Twelve  Guns,  Thirty 
yards  of  Shirting  Cloth,  one  Runlett  of  Poweder,  Ten  Barrs  of 
Lead,  fforty  yards  of  Stroud  Waters,  Twenty  pairs  of  Stockins, 
One  Horse,  fifty  pounds  of  tobacco,  Six  dozen  of  pipes  and 
thirty  shillings  in  cash."  In  this  deed  Tammany  is  styled  "King 
Taminy"  and  he  appointed  as  his  attorney  to  acknowledge  and 
deliver  the  deed,  Lasse  Cock,  a  Swede  and  Penn's  interpreter. 

As  showing  Tammany's  moral  character  and  the  peace  policy 
he  advocated  for  his  people  in  their  dealings  with  the  Pennsyl- 
vania proprietors,  I  would  like  to  quote  one  paragraph  from  a 
speech  he  made  July  6,  1694,  before  the  council  at  Philadelphia, 
when  the  Iroquois  wanted  the  Delawares  to  attack  the  settlers. 
He  said : 

"Wee  and  the  Christians  of  this  river  Have  allwayes  had  a  free  rode 
way  to  one  another,  &  tho'  sometimes  a  tree  has  fallen  across  the  rode 
yet  wee  have  still  removed  it  again,  &  keept  the  path  clear,  and  wee 
design  to  Continou  the  old  friendshipp  that  has  been  between  us  and 
you;  and  gives  a  Belt  of  wampum." 

FIGUREHEADS. 

We  now  come  to  the  subject  of  this  figurehead  or  bust  of 
Tammany,  the  picture  of  which  is  before  you,  and  which  leads 


FIGUREHEAD  OF  CHIEF  TAMMANY  AT  ANNAPOLIS  343 

first  to  a  few  general  words  on  the  time-honored  practice  of 
ornamenting  ships. 

In  ancient  times,  when  the  mariner  ventured  timidly  in  his 
frail  bark  on  unknown  waters,  he  placed  on  the  prow  of  his  vessel 
a  symbol  or  token  signifying  his  dependence  upon  a  spirit  or 
diety  supposed  to  dominate  the  wind  and  the  water.  In  the  many 
succeeding  centuries,  this  emblem  assumed  various  forms.  In 
the  days  of  the  Phoenician,  they  erected  on  their  galleys  some- 
form  of  a  marine-protecting  diety;  the  Greeks  had  images  of 
Castor  and  Pollux;  the  Egyptians,  the  ram's  head  or  a  carved 
lotus ;  the  Roman  vessels  bore  the  head  of  a  lion,  while  the  ancient 
Norse  battlecraft  bore  aloft  the  dragon  or  serpent's  head  on  its; 
way  to  the  shore  of  Iceland  and  Greenland. 

Coming  down  to  more  recent  times,  the  period  of  the  building 
of  our  American  navy,  we  find  portrait  busts  of  illustrious  war- 
riors or  statesmen  carved  in  wood,  like  the  object  this  picture  por- 
trays. Today,  if  you  walk  along  the  Philadelphia  water-front  and 
observe  the  outgoing  and  incoming  vessels,  you  will  find  upon 
the  ship's  prow  a  faint  scroll,  all  that  survives  as  a  reminder  of 
those  days  when  the  navigator  felt  that  the  greatest  of  his  crafts 
could  survive  the  elements  only  if  he  appealed  to  the  forces  of 
the  unknown  world. 

For  almost  half  a  century,  one  of  the  features  and  traditions", 
of  the  U.  S.  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis  has  been  this  Indian: 
figurehead,  which  has  long  stood  on  a  stone  pedestal  faring  Ban- 
croft Hall.  Strange  to  say,  it  has  been  erroneously  called  Po- 
hawtan,  King  Philip,  Uncas  and  Tecumseh,  and  only  quite  re- 
cently was  it  authoritatively  established  that  it  was  Tammany.. 
The  proof  of  this  is  found  in  certain  letters  in  the  Navy  depart- 
ment, in  the  year  1821,  copies  of  which  I  have  here.  The  Hon.. 
V.  VanDyke,  of  the  United  States  Senate,  in  a  letter  dated  Janu- 
ary 5,  1821,  directed  the  attention  of  Commodore  John  Rodgers 
to  the  subject  of  Tamanend  and  suggested  that  as  Tamanend  was 
the  most  distinguished  chief  of  the  Delaware  Indians  and  his 
name  connected  with  the  early  history  of  our  country,  that  his 
bust  would  be  an  appropriate  figurehead  for  the  Ship-of-the-Line,, 
Delaware  then  being  built.  The  records  show  the  specifications 
of  the  figurehead  as  follows : 


344  FIGUREHEAD  OF  CHIEF  TAMMANY  AT  ANNAPOLIS 

Bust  of  Tamanend,  the  celebrated  Chief  of  the  Delaware 
Indians. 

Drapery — a  Blanket  with  a  Belt,  in  which  is  a  Tomahawk. 

Over  the  left  shoulder — a  Quiver  of  Arrows. 

One  hand  resting  on  a  Bow,  and  the  other  Hand  holding  the 
Calumet. 

That  which  we  see  here  is  only  a  part  of  the  statue,  which  the 
records  indicate  as  being  nine  feet  in  height. 

Despite  the  fact  that  some  of  these  proofs  were  brought  to 
public  attention  in  a  maratime  journal,  the  error  still  seems  to 
persist  and  even  to  this  day,  if  you  approach  one  of  the  future 
admirals  of  the  navy  and  ask  him  the  name  of  the  portrait-bust 
on  the  campus  at  Annapolis,  he  will  tell  you  it  is  Tecumseh.  They 
all  have  a  certain  sentiment  for  the  figurehead,  as  it  is  supposed 
to  have  occult  powers.  The  system  of  marking  at  the  academy  is 
upon  the  basis  of  4,  the  lowest  satisfactory  mark  in  any  sub- 
ject in  the  curriculm  being  2  :5,  and  we  are  told  that  when  these 
middies  are  fearful  that  their  examination  papers  would  fail  to 
meet  this  minimum,  they  would  slip  away  in  the  shadow  of  that 
grim  figure  after  dark  and  pray  for  the  old  Indian  chief's  favor 
— '"the  God  of  the  2  :5"  as  he  is  known. 

SHIPS  OF  THE  U.  S.  NAVY  NAMED  DELAWARE. 

I  have  said  this  figurehead  was  taken  from  the  old  Ship-of-the- 
Line  Delaware.  An  extended  inquiry  among  naval  men  and  a 
protracted  search  among  public  documents  and  records  has 
yielded  some  interesting  information.  There  were  five  ships  in 
our  navy  by  the  name  of  Delaware. 

Delaavare  1.  Frigate,  321  tons,  24  guns,  180  men,  built  at  Philadelphia 
in  1776,  under  the  direction  of  the  Marine  Committee,  by  order  of  the 
Continental  Congress,  Dec.  13,  1775.  Owing  to  the  blockade  of  the 
Delaware  by  the  British  fleet,  she  never  got  to  sea,  but  took  an  active 
part,  as  one  of  Commodore  John  Hazelwood's  fleet  in  the  engagements 
in  the  Delaware,  1776-1777.  Took  part  in  the  engagement  near  Red 
Bank,  N.  J.,  under  command  of  Capt.  C.  Alexander,  May  8,  1776,  and 
in  the  destr^^ction  of  H.  B.  M.  S.  Merlin  and  Augusta,  Oct.  22,  23, 
1777.  November  19,  1777,  owing  to  the  wind  having  died  away  the 
Delaware  was  unable  to  pass  the  British  fortifications  below  Phila- 
delphia, and  was  set  on  fire  to  prevent  her  falling  into  the  hands  of 
the  enemy 

Delaware  2.     Ship,  321  tons,  20  guns,  180  men.     Purchased  in  Phila- 


FIGUREHEAD  OF  CHIEF  TAMMANY  AT  ANNAPOLIS  345 

delphia  in  1798.  Sold  at  Baltimore  1801,  under  the  Peace  Establish- 
ment Act.  Cruised  in  the  West  Indies  during  the  Naval  War  with 
France,  1798-99,  commanded  by  Capt.  Stephen  Decatur,  Sr..  made  the 
first  capture  in  this  war,  off  the  Capes  of  the  Delaware,  June,  1798. 
and  later  captured  four  other  prizes. 

Delaware  3.  Line  of  battleship,  named  for  the  State  of  Delaware, 
2,633  tons,  74  guns,  complement,  officers  and  men,  820.  Commenced 
in  1817  at  Gosport  (Norfolk)  Navy  Yard.  Launched  Oct.  21,  1820. 
Cruised  as  flagship  of  the  Mediterranean  and  Brazil  Stations,  1828- 
1844,  when  she  was  laid  up  in  ordinary  at  the  Norfolk  Navy  Yard. 
Destroyed  when  the  Union  forces  evacuated  this  navy  yard  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Civil  War  (April  21,  1861).  This  line-of-battleship 
originally  had  a  figure  of  an  Indian  chief  as  a  figurehead,  which  now 
stands  in  the  grounds  of  the  U.  S.  Naval  Academy. 

Delaware  4.  Paddlewheel  steamer,  357  tons,  5  guns.  Purchased  in 
1861.  Sold  Sept.  12,  1865.  Very  actively  engaged  on  the  coast  of 
North  Carolina  from  1861  to  1865. 

Delaware  5.  First  class  battleship,  named  for  the  State  of  Delaware. 
Length  510  feet,'  beam  85  feet.  Tons  20,000.  Built  at  the  Newport 
News  Shipbuilding  &  Dry  Dock  Company,  Newport  News,  Va. 
Launched  February  6,  1909.  Battery  30  guns  (2  anti-aircraft) ;  2  sub- 
merged torpedo  tubes.  Attached  to  the  Atlantic  Fle&t,  Squadron  3, 
Division  5.^ 

In  conclusion,  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  something  of 
the  one  who  carved  this  remarkable  figurehead. 

At  the  time  when  all  ships  bore  their  insignia,  the  art  of  wood- 
carving  developed  in  America  to  the  highest  standard.  Of  these 
sculptors,  William  Rush  stood  foremost.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
ship  carpenter,  born  in  Philadelphia  in  1756  and  died  in  1833. 
Of  the  examples  of  his  work  of  which  we  have  knowledge,  I 
will  mention  a  few  : 

A  figure  of  an  "Indian  Trader"  dressed  in  Indian  habiliments, 
on  the  vessel  William  Penn  excited  great  admiration  in  London, 
while  his  "River  God"  as  the  figurehead  of  the  ship  "Ganges" 
as  it  passed  up  that  river  on  its  way  to  Calcutta  attracted  the  na- 
tives as  an  object  of  adoration  and  of  worship. 

At  the  Masonic  Temple  in  Philadelphia  can  be  seen  a  remark- 
able female  figure  symbolizing  "Silence." 

His  figures  of  "Tragedy"  and  "Comedy,"  once  owned  by  Ed- 
win Forrest,  are  in  the  Edwin  Forrest  Actors'  Home  at  Holmes- 
burg.     Possibly  the  most  remarkable  of  his  carvings  is  the  fuU- 

1  The  Delaware  No.  5  served  throughout  the  Great  War  and  was  scrapped 
under  the  provisions  of  President  Harding's  Disarmament  Conference. 


346  FIGUREHEAD  OF  CHIEF  TAMMANY  AT  AXXAPOLIS 

length  figure  of  \A'ashington  Avhich  was  first  exhibited  in  1815 
and  purchased  in  1831  by  the  city  for  the  sum  of  $500.  It  can 
be  seen  in  Congress  Hall,  Philadelphia. 

Here  is  a  newspaper  clipping  of  the  Pcu)isylz'ouia  Journal  of 
November  23,  1791 : 

"The  art  of  carving,  especially  heads  of  ships,  we  may  without 
boasting  say,  is  now  brought  to  the  greatest  degree  of  perfection  in  this 
city.  A  stranger  walking  along  the  wharves,  must  be  struck  with  the 
beautiful  female  figures  of  Peace,  Plenty,  Love,  Harmony,  Ariel, 
Astronomy,  Minerva,  America,  etc.,  etc.,  and  also  with  the  masculine 
statues  of  American  Warriors,  Alexanders,  Hannibals,  Caesars,  etc., 
etc.,  and  amongst  the  rest  of  those  heroes  the  bold  and  striking  like- 
ness of  the  President,  on  the  General  Washington,  a  ship  which  sailed 
yesterday  for  Dublin,  must  give  pleasure  to  every  spectator.  The  artist 
who  executed  this,  we  hear  is  Mr.  Rush;  and  as  we  may  allow  sea 
Captains  to  be  judges,  they  are  generally  of  the  opinion  that  the  carv- 
ing of  heads  of  vessels  in  Philadelphia  is  superior  to  any  they  have  seen 
in  any  part  of  the  world." 

While  this  figure  of  Tammany  does  not  appear  in  the  list  of 
Rush's  known. works,  it  has  been  by  some  attributed  to  him,  and 
I  believe  that  further  investigation  will  establish  beyond  doubt 
that  this  remarkable  figurehead,  the  only  idealization  of  the  great 
Indian  Chief  Tammany,  is  the  work  of  the  sculptor,  Willianx 
Rush. 


C4.g8 

■■:  '^BfiadsHavY  i/i2 

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I234b0'y^        ^ 

WORKED  BY   RUTH   BRADSHAW,    1712 
Loaned  by  Miss  Mary  S.   Paxson,  Carversville,   Pa. 


Bucks  County  Samplers. 

BY   MRS.   WILLIAM   R.    MERCER,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  June  18,  1921.) 

WHEN  I  was  first  invited  to  say  a  few  words  to  you  on 
the  subject  of  samplers  I  felt  that  it  was  quite  beyond 
my  powers.  In  the  first  place,  I  knew  little  or  nothing 
about  the  subject,  had  seen  very  few  samplers  and  felt  that  I 
could  not  judge  their  merits  or  demerits.  Some  weeks  have 
elapsed  since  then,  and  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  see  many  of 
these  quaint  and  interesting  pieces  of  needlework,  and  to  learn 
a  little  about  their  origin,  the  materials  with  which  they  were 
made,  and  above  all  to  realize  the  human  meaning  that  lies  under- 
neath all  expression.  I  am  more  than  glad  I  was  asked  to  under- 
take, I  will  not  say  this  task,  but  this  pleasure,  not  only  to  learn 
what  part  the  sampler  has  played  in  our  early  American  history, 
but  also  to  get  into  touch  with  their  owners  and  to  see  how  they 
have  treasured  these  little  squares,  that  are  quite  a  chapter  in 
themselves  of  American  handicraft. 

These  few  words  of  preamble  are  to  explain  to  you  how  I  hap- 
pen to  be  here,  and  to  ask  you  not  to  expect  too  much  from  me. 
This  is  not  to  be  the  result  of  profound  research,  it  is  only  to  be 
an  informal  talk  on  a  very  charming  form  of  needlework.  I 
shall  only  try  to  tell  you  what  I  have  learned  myself. 

Before  we  speak  of  Bucks  county  samplers,  or  even  American 
samplers,  I  would  like  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject  in  gen- 
eral. I  do  not  think  that  we  shall  be  able  to  understand  the 
samplers  that  we  see  about  us  in  our  exhibition  without  going  far 
back  and  realizing  that  this  work  did  not  suddenly  spring  into 
existence,  but  developed  step  by  step. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  foundations :  It  is  interesting  to  hear  that 
the  first  mention  of  a  sampler  occurs  when  Queen  Elizabeth  of 
York,  wife  of  Henry  VII,  in  1465,  is  recorded  to  have  paid  8 
pence  for  one  all  of  linen  to  make  an  ensampler.  Now  let  us 
pause  a  moment  and  notice  this  word.  Ensampler  is  the  old 
English  for  exampler,  in  other  words  an  example,  and  in  that 
one  word  is  contained  the  whole  meaning  of  the  early  samplers. 


348  BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS 

We  do  not  realize  in  these  days  of  machine-made  products 
what  a  part  needlework  played  in  the  olden  days.  Everything 
was  embroidered :  dresses,  underwear,  furniture  .coverings,  above 
all  table  linen  and  bed  drapery  were  not  only  embroidered  but 
marked,  and  needlework  was  at  once  an  occupation,  a  pleasure 
and  a  relaxation  enjoyed  by  old  and  young.  Therefore,  how  to 
preserve  these  stitches  and  patterns  became  an  absorbing  interest. 

The  first  samplers  are  just  what  is  expressed  by  the  word 
example.  They  are  a  dictionarj'  of  patterns.  A  tradition  tells  us 
that  Catharine  of  Aragon,  wife  of  Henry  VII I,  taught  the  women 
of  Bedfordshire,  in  England,  to  embroider  the  very  early  ones. 
That  may  or  may  not  be  so,  but  in  any  case  it  shows  that  the 
interest  existed  in  all  classes. 

Now,  in  those  days,  the  samplers  were  long  and  narrow,  in 
shape  very  different  from  the  later  ones.  The  English  hand 
looms  were  oak,  eight  or  nine  inches  wide.  The  sampler  would 
be  accordingly  narrow,  and  about  one  yard  in  length,  and  the 
owner  would  keep  it  rolled  up  when  it  was  not  in  use  or  on  ex- 
hibition. The  very  early  ones  were,  usually  all  white,  of  linen 
worked  \vith  linen  thread.  I  only  wish  that  I  had  with  me  some 
of  the  lovely  ones  that  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum in  New  York.  They  seem  like  cobwebs  woven  by  fairies, 
the  pattern  resembling  Italian  cut-work.  The  number  of  pat- 
terns is  endless  on  these  early  beautiful  examples,  and  they  ex- 
press what  they  were  meant  to  be,  the  record  book  to  be  handed 
on  to  children  and  grandchildren,  the  dictionary  of  needlework. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  here  that  the  earliest  known  dated 
sampler  is  an  English  one  dated  1643;  beyond  that  we  encounter 
an  entire  blank,  and  yet  samplers  were  written  about  by  Shake- 
speare and  Milton,  and  were  also  deemed  worthy  of  mention  as 
bequests.  For  instance  in  the  will  of  Margaret  Tomson,  of  Lin- 
colnshire, England,  in  1546,  she  says  "I  give  to  Alys  Pynsbeck, 
my  sister's  daughter,  my  sampler  with  semes". 

Being  merely  pattern  records,  however,  these  early  samplers  do 
not  have  the  decorative  value  of  the  later  work. 

Numerals  and  alphabets  were  added  to  these  lace  patterns  after 
a  little.  Then  came  texts  and  verses,  and  soon  the  sampler  be- 
came, not  an  example  of  embroidery  stitches,  but  a  chart  on 
which  were  set  out  varieties  of  lettering  and  alphabets.     About 


l^xST^T^/^lpjE^S^^^W^C^T^ 


\-^»-/  "■ 


WORKED    BY   MARY    SHEEDS,    1806 
Loaned   by    Mrs.    Henry   D.    Paxson,   Holicong,    Pa. 


^   i 

(^rmit  ihy  gncioTj?  name,  to  stand  ^f 

.S^As  tke  first  effort  of  my  fouthM  amdt 

Y  't- 

JjAx^  wbil«  my  f in^er^  o'er  t.kis  canvass  move/ 

':XEng,a|,e  my  tender  heart  to  se«k  thy  love/  v 

J/ With  thy  dsar  children  let  me  jbear  a,  p^rt  ''^ 

Y^ And  write  thy  name  thyself  upor.  rfxj  heartjf 

Vlhe  only  amaranthine  fiowr  on  c?rth      V 

'if  t? 

^■f  Is  virtue  th'only  lasUng  treasure  truth     ]jj 

t.  Susa»  .  Mtgili 

'"i      **fe  Newtown 

WORKED    BY    SUSAX    MACaLL,    1812 
Loaned  by   Mrs.   C.    S.   Atkinson,   New   Hope,   Pa. 


BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS  349 

1700  it  became  possible  to  weave  wider  stripes  and  so  we  find 
the  samplers  becoming  wider  and  shorter. 

A  word  now  about  foreign  samplers,  for  we  must  not  think 
they  were  all  produced  in  England.  Samplers  are  found  in  all 
European  countries  with  England  and  Germany,  however,  lead- 
ing the  way.  They  can  also  be  seen  in  France,  Belgium,  Holland, 
Denmark,  Sweden,  Switzerland,  Italy  and  Spain.  You  can  also 
find  some  that  were  made  in  the  mission  schools  of  India  and  I 
have  seen  a  Turkish  one.  All  the  continental  samplers  are  made 
of  wider  linen  than  English  ones,  and  are  usually  done  in  brightly 
colored  silks.  Most  of  them  have  inscriptions  and  almost  all  are 
dated  and  the  name  of  the  worker  is  signed  in  full,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  German  ones,  where  only  the  initials  figure. 

Now  that  we  have  learned  a  little  about  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  the  earliest  samplers,  let  us  turn  to  the  first  American  ones. 
The  earliest  one  that  we  possess  is  in  the  Essex  Institute,  Salem, 
Mass.,  and  is  the  work  of  Ann  Gower,  the  wife  of  Governor 
Endicott.  It  is  not  dated,  but  must  have  been  made  about  1610, 
that  is,  before  she  came  to  America.  The  second  oldest,  is  also 
in  Massachusetts,  the  work  of  Loara  Standish,  daughter  of  Cap- 
tain ]\Iiles  Standish  of  Plymouth.  It  is  only  a  little  later  in  date 
to  that  of  Ann  Gower.  These  are  both  long  samplers,  but  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  saw  the  passing  of  the  narrow  type. 
About  1740  the  border  began  to  creep  in,  and  soon  became  a 
frame  for  birds,  flowers,  verses,  texts  and  all  sorts  of  designs. 

Now,  as  this  is  called  a  paper  on  Bucks  County  Samplers.  I 
must  tell  this  Bucks  comity  audience,  all  that  I  have  discovered 
about  the  very  lovely  samplers  which  abound  here.  I  only  wish 
that  I  had  begun  this  research  years  ago  instead  of  weeks  ago. 
However,  I  have  had  very  much  co-operation  from  the  owners 
of  the  samplers,  without  whom  we  could  never  have  had  this 
exhibition.  I  have  found  on  all  sides  unparalled  generosity  and 
a  desire  to  help.  When  we  first  thought  of  an  exhibition  a  friend 
said  to  me,  "No  one  will  feel  like  lending  these  lovely  old  sam- 
plers", but  I  have  not  only  found  a  willingness  to  lend  when  they 
were  asked,  but  I  have  been,  even  called  on  the  telephone  by 
generous  friends  who  have  been  glad  to  loan  them. 

Of  course  the  samplers  in  the  county  were  made  mostly  by 
either  English  or  German  forbears,  and  I  was  much  pleased  to 


350  BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS 

see  how  many  interesting  and  beautiful  ones  were  scattered 
about.  The  materials  are  a  coarse  linen,  which  had  a  great  vogue 
at  that  time,  often  stained  yellow. 

Sometimes  canvas  was  used,  particularly  when  the  alphabet 
was  done  in  cross  stitch.  Very  often  we  find  a  fine  bolting  cloth 
as  it  was  called,  silk  texture  that  had  been  dipped  in  gummed 
water,  note  the  two  examples  made  by  Mary  and  Rachel  Collins 
in  1810.  That  offers  a  very  fine  and  beautiful  background  for 
dainty  patterns.  We  can  find  practically  all  the  sampler  stitches 
of  other  countries  reproduced  in  our  Bucks  county  samplers, 
cross  stitch,  satin  stitch,  tent-stitch,  eyelet-stitch,  and  even 
French  knots.  The  designs  are  also  the  same  as  on  the  English 
ones.  We  find  the  same  huge  birds  sitting  on  small  trees,  the 
mourning  trees  with  branches  turned  down,  and  the  tree  of  life 
with  branches  joyfully  turned  upward.  Then  the  baskets  of 
fruit  appear  again  and  again,  also  the  rose,  the  strawberry  and 
the  pink.  The  American  linen  was  usually  coarser  and  rougher 
than  the  English  or  continental  linen.  A  material  of  wool  and 
linen  called  "tammy  cloth"  was  also  used.  As  the  moths  soon 
discovered  it,  many  beautiful  samplers  were  partially  destroyed. 

The  silk  or  thread  was  of  course  home-dyed.  In  this  relation 
I  want  you  to  notice  Maria  Thomas'  sampler,  her  mother  raised 
the  silk  worms,  made  the  silk  and  dyed  it  at  home,  and  Maria 
worked  the  sampler.  Cochineal,  logwood  plant  a  genesta,  indigo 
and  saffron  were  among  the  substances  used  for  that.  In  some 
of  the  New  England  samplers  a  certain  kinkiness  in  the  silk  is 
explained  by  its  having  been  supposedly  brought  over  from  the 
Orient  by  the  sea  captains.  The  oldest  sampler  on  exhibition  is 
dated  1712  and  is  worked  on  linen  in  black  cross  stitch;  notice 
here  that  the  earliest  ones  were  always  cross  stitch,  the  satin 
stitch  came  later. 

One  of  our  most  interesting  samplers  is  lent  by  Mrs.  Henry 
D.  Paxson.  It  was  made  by  Hannah  Sheed  and  dated  1806.  The 
maker  was  descended  from  the  Swedes  who  settled  in  Pennsyl- 
vania in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  it  is  a  beautiful  example 
of  needlework. 

Another  interesting  Bucks  county  sampler  has  been  loaned 
by  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society.  It  is  dated  1810  and 
was  made  by  Martha  Lacey,  the  daughter  of  General  Lacey,  the 


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WORKED    BY    RACHEL    BROADHURST,    1812 
Loaned  by  Mrs.  John  Rockafellow,  Forest  Grove,  Pa. 


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WORKED    BY   SUSAX    SCHLEIPPER.    1816 
Loaned  by  Hon.  Henry  S.   Punk,   SpringtOM^n,  Pa. 


BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS  351 

hero  of  the  battle  of  the  Crooked  Billet,  near  Hatboro.  Still  an- 
other, dated  also  1810,  was  loaned  by  the  same  society,  and  made 
by  a  member  of  the  Stewart  family,  then  hving  near  New  Galena. 
It  has  a  beautiful  motto,  which  I  quote : 

If  I  am  right,  thy  grace  impart 

Still  in  the  right  to  stay, 
If  I  am  wrong,  oh.  teach  me  how 

To  find  the  better  way. 

I  want  to  draw  attention  to  Mary  D.  Richardson's  darned 
sampler,  dated  1821.  It  is  the  only  example  of  that  kind  of  work 
that  we  have  on  exhibition.  The  colors  are  in  a  very  fine  state 
of  preservation.  Some  times  these  samplers  were  really  darned, 
and  the  material  cut  from  underneath,  but  in  this  one  the  needle 
is  simply  run  under  the  threads.  The  inscription  says  it  was  made 
at  Attleborough  School,  now  Langhorne. 

Acrostics  were  much  in  vogue  a  hundred  or  more  years  ago. 
AVe  have  only  one  example  here,  signed  E.  S.,  dated  1834. 

Then,  those  who  are  historically  interested  in  our  county  will 
enjoy  the  delightful  picture  made  by  Susan  Geary  in  1832  of 
Fallsington  School.  It  was  probably  done  when  she  was  a  pupil 
there  and  was  a  monument  to  her  industry  and  perseverance. 

A  very  fine  sampler  has  been  loaned,  made  on  tammy  cloth,  that 
combination  of  wool  and  linen  that  has  been  mentioned.  It  was 
made  by  Rachel  Broadhurst  in  1812  and  has  a  very  great  variety 
of  design.  It  is  the  only  one  we  have  on  which  the  unicorn  is 
depicted,  evidently  an  heritage  from  English  ancestors.  It  is  in 
a  very  fine  state  of  preservation. 

Another  favorite  form  of  sampler  was  the  extracts,  as  they 
were  called,  that  is,  verses  enclosed  in  a  frame  composed  of  a 
single  line  of  black  stitch.  We  have  shown  here  three  such  ex- 
amples. Two  of  our  very  best  and  oldest  samplers  are  Ann 
Wady's,  dated  1746.  and  the  one  finished  by  Ann  Pierce  in  1742. 
They  are  a  beautiful  example  of  fine  stitchery  and  are  both  done 
in  cross  stitch.  They  are  both  little  gems  as  is  the  one  made  by 
Sara  Magill  in  Newtown  in  1819.  This  last  is  worked  on  bolting 
cloth  laid  upon  gold  paper,  producing  a  very  lovely  effect. 

I  only  have  time  to  mention  three  more  of  our  Bucks  county 
samplers,  that  of  Ann  Bessonette.  done  in  the  eighth  year  of  her 
age,  in  1780.     Notice  particularly  the  coaches  drawn  by  black 


352 


BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS 


ponies.  The  whole  execution  of  this  sampler  is  very  fine  and  the 
quaint  design  most  unusual.  Bessonette  we  believe  to  be  an  old 
Hugenot  name  from  the  lower  part  of  the  county.  The  French 
Hugenots  were  great  sampler-makers.  That  of  Sarah  Richard- 
son, dated  1825,  with  its  fine  strawberry  border,  gives  a  very 
charming  effect.  The  strawberry,  by  the  way,  was  a  favorite 
design  and  we  find  it  again  and  again.  The  inscription  is  very 
quaint  it  is  called  "Friendship",  and  says : 

And  what  is  friendship  but  a  name, 

A  charm  that  lulls  to  sleep, 
A  shade  that  follows  wealth  or  fame 

And  leaves  the  wretch  to  weep. 

The  last  sampler  of  which  I  shall  speak  is  by  Elizabeth  Mere- 
dith dated  1788.  A  beautiful  border  of  yellow  flowers  encloses 
the  Lord's  prayer  in  verse.  For  daintiness,  execution  and  de- 
sign it  is  as  lovely  an  example  as  any  that  we  have. 

I  would  like  to  mention  each  one  of  the  samplers  exhibited  here 
but  time  and  space  forbids.  The  whole  county  has  come  forward 
with  astonishing  enthusiasm.  I  want  especially  to  mention  Miss 
Eleanor  Foulke,  of  Quakertown,  to  whom  we  owe  the  idea  of 
having  this  exhibition.  She  has  worked  untiringly  and  has  beau- 
tiful and  interesting  samplers  from  the  northern  part  of  the 
county.  One  especially  quaint  was  made  in  the  year  1821  by 
Susan  Schleififer.     The  inscription  runs  : 

When  I  am  dead  and  in  my  grave, 

And  all  my  bones  are  rotten; 
When  this  you  see  remember  me. 

Or  I  shall  be  forgotten. 

I  also  want  to  draw  your  attention,  to  the  various  needlework 
pictures.  They  are  not  samplers,  to  be  sure,  but  we  are  very 
glad  to  have  them,  as  they  were  co-existent  with  samplers  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  They  will  repay  close  ex- 
amination for  their  wonderful  needlework. 

It  is  interesting  to  discover  when  certain  designs  first  came  into 
being.  In  1710  Adam  and  Eve  became  popular  and  hundreds  of 
samplers  reproduced  the  Garden  of  Eden.  Amusing  to  relate, 
our  first  parents  were  often  attired  in  the  fashions  of  the  day. 
Eve  in  hoop  skirt  and  Adam  in  court  dress.     Here,  owing  to  the 


i/QA 


S'^^S^^a 


M. 


^/  mkc. 


WdllKKI)   BY   MAUY   1 ).    KM 'H  A  111  )S()N,    ISlil. 
Loaned  by  Mrs.  Thomas  L.  Allen,  Langhorne,  Pa. 


WORKED  BY  SUSAN  GEARY,   1832 
Loaned  by  Mrs.  S.  B.  Farren.  Doylestown,  Pa. 


BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS  353 

kindness  of  Mr.  Howell,  of  Germantown,  we  find  in  our  exhibi- 
tion Adam  and  Eve  in  full  Quaker  costume. 

Another  friend  has  allowed  us  to  show  her  sampler,  where  the 
Garden  of  Eden  is  represented,  also  the  serpent  seems  to  be 
speaking  to  Eve,  while  Adam  looks  on.  All  the  participants, 
except  the  serpent  are  in  the  costume  of  the  day,  which  was 
about  one  hundred  years  ago. 

From  about  1777  to  1812  we  find  the  map  samplers,  that  were 
supposed  to  teach  at  once  the  art  of  needlework  and  the  science 
of  geography.  They  were  outlined-stitches  on  linen,  silk  and 
even  satin,  and  were  of  course,  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  travel 
and  colonization,  I  wish  I  could  have  found  one  for  exhibition. 
I  think  that  we  are  all  struck  by  the  extreme  youth  of  the  sample- 
makers.  The  most  beautiful  and  finished  work  was  sometimes 
accomplished  by  a  child  of  nine,  and  very  few  of  the  samples 
were  done  by  any  one  older  than  fifteen  years.  For  instance, 
Maria  Thomas  in  1828  exclaims  at  the  age  of  nine : 

O,  may  my  follies,  like  the  falling  trees. 
Be  stripp'd  of  every  leaf  by  Autumn's  wind; 
May  every  branch  of  vice  embrace  the  breeze, 
And    nothing   leave    but   virtue's    fruit    behind. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  rise  of  Method- 
ism gave  popularity  to  various  texts.  The  Lord's  prayer  and  the 
Epistles  were  often  done  in  cross  stitch,  along  with  moral  maxims 
and  texts,  and  it  might  interest  this  audience  to  hear  how  far  back 
some  of  the  most  common  designs  can  be  traced  by  listening  to 
the  following :  Adam  and  Eve,  as  we  have  said,  began  to  be 
seen  in  1710;  the  alphabet,  in  1643.  The  border  enclosing  a 
sampler,  in  1726;  numerals,  1655.  We  inight  go  on  indefinately 
tracing  the  familiar  figures,  but  it  is  evident  that  the  sampler  has 
gone  through  four  stages. 

1.  It  was  a  record  of  design. 

2.  An  example  of  handiwork. 

3.  A  training  for  little  girls. 

4.  A  school  room  task. 

There  are  very  few  books  written  about  samplers,  and  not  very 
many  articles.  A  splendid  book  on  American  samplers  is  about 
to  be  published  by  two  members  of  the  Colonial  Dames.     That 


354  BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS 

society  has  been  especially  interested  in  samplers  and  has  held 
exhibitions  at  different  times. 

What  a  pity  that  this  charming  form  of  needlework  is  fast  dis- 
appearing. These  bits  of  faded  color  appeal  to  us  in  a  very 
special  manner.  They  speak  of  bygone  days,  of  lives  spent  quietly 
in  home  surroundings  before  the  advent  of  the  trolley  car  and 
automobile ;  what  dreams  were  woven  into  these  tiny  stitches, 
what  thoughts  were  passing  through  the  minds  of  those  whose 
busy  fingers  wove  these  designs?  We  shall  not  know,  but  we 
can  look  at  them  with  tenderness,  and  feel  that  perhaps  little 
Ellen  Maria  Odiorne,  aged  ten  years  old,  was  not  wrong  when 
she  wrote  on  her  sampler  in  1822  these  words : 

How  various  her  employments,  whom  the  world 

Calls  idle  and  who  justly  in  return 

Esteems  that  busy  world  an  idler  too. 

Friends,   books,   her   needle   and   perhaps   her   pen. 

Delightful  industry,   enjoyed   at  home, 

Could  she  want  occupation  who  has  these? 

The  following  is  a  list  of  the  samplers  loaned  to  Mrs.  Mercer. 
She  displayed  many  of  them  on  the  walls  of  the  auditorium  in 
which  the  meeting  was  held.  They  were  of  special  interest  to 
all,  and  assisted  her  greatly  in  illustrating  her  interesting  paper. 

PERSONS  LOANING  WHEN   AND   BY  WHOM 

SAMPLERS  WORKED 


Miss  Marv  S.  Paxson,  Carversville 


S  Ruth  Bradshaw,  1712 

(  Composed  by  E.  S.,  1834 
Mrs.  Emlin  Martin,  Bristol  Ann   Pierce,    1742 

Mrs.  Eliza  Hance,  Newtown  Ann  Wady,   1746 

\  Elizabeth  Thompson,  plate,   1748 
Mrs.  Helen  Parry  Fretz,  Newtown      \  Elizabeth   T.    Neelv,    (b.    1805,   d. 

[      1842). 
Mrs.  T.  O.  Atkinson,  Doylestown  Phoebe   Schofield,   1760 

Mrs.  Horatio  Beatty,  Bristol 


I  Ann   Bessonett,    1780 
(  Catharine    Cabeen,    1819 


Mrs.  A.  E.  Levick,  Quakertown  Ann  Laning,  two,  1784  and  1794 

Mrc  TVlr^rv,^c  T     All      T         u  f  Aun  Lanittg,  two,  1784 -and  1794 

Mrs.  Thomas  L.  Allen  Langhorne  |  ^^^^^  ^    Richardson,   1821 

Miss  Fanny  Chapman,  Dovlestown  \  glif  beth   Meredith.   1786 

^         '        -   ^='-^^"-  I  Not  given — Embroidered  picture 

Miss  Marian  Lyman,  Doylestown  Elizabeth   Aleredith.    1788 

Miss   Emma  James,   Doylestown  Polly  Armstrong,   1798 

Mrs.  Richard  Watson,  Dovlestown  \  \\^'Y  Rodman,  1799 

(  Maria  Thomas,   1828 

Mrs.  Penrose  Roberts,  Quakertown  Margaret   Penrose,    1799 


»r- 


^     "'       ACEOh 

Mmtw  Charm-^  Kai^  thou      j 
And.  Wirings  iiot  few?^ 
Eare  Beauty  onlktr  Brox^ 

■  GodLme^s^s-  too  « 

^^-ndfrowthY  Sonil 

Eadiar^t  xxxith  Lo^o^^ 
^■^^  E  tef  Ti&L  Fea^ce  thy  Goal 

Trea-^wed- froTO  AJ>o^^e  '^ 

Good  friend  thou  art 

Oh .  one  .^0  feir  apd  K  md  - 

Oft  Low  may  rlLLthy^Heart  t 
E>eeP  FufitY  thy  Mmd  >■  ^| 


Co^YsPo^s-ed  W  E'S" 


COMPOSED   BY   K.    S.,  A.    D.    1834 
Loaned   by   Miss  Mary   S.    Paxson,    Carversville,    Pa. 


BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS 


355 


PERSONS   LOANING 
SAMPLERS 

Mrs.  Henry  D.  Paxson,  Holicong 

Mrs.  William  Tinsman,  Lumberville 

Mrs.  Augustus  J.  Pickering, 
Gardenville 


Mrs.  Emma  Stapler  Wright, 
Newtown 


Mrs.  Charles  Smith,  Newtown 

Dr.  F.  B.  Swartzlander,  Doylestown 
Hon.  Henry  S.  Funk,  Springtown 

Mrs.  Edward  Blackfan,  New  Hope 

Miss  Mary  Bunting,  Newtown 
Mrs.  Mary  Armstrong,  Doylestown 

Miss  Eleanor  Foulke,  Quakertown 

Mrs.  John  Ely,  New  Hope 

Miss  Marie  H.  Radcliffe,  Bucking- 
ham 

Mrs.  George  Ross,  Doylestown 

Mrs.  John  S.  Rockafellow,  Forest 
Grove 

Mrs.  C.  S.  Atkinson,  New  Hope 

Mrs.  John  Yardley,  Doylestown 
Mrs.  Margaret  Wiggins,  Newtown 

Mrs.  Warner  Thompson,  Wycombe 

Ad:rs.  H.  A.  Todd,  Doylestown 
Miss  Edith  Newlin  Fell,  Holicong 


Mr.  George  C.Worstall,  Newtown 


Miss  Louisa  B.  Hill,  Quakertown 
Mrs.  Lydia  W.  Thompson,  Newtowi 


WHEN   AND    BY   WHO^[ 
WORKED 

f  Hanamell   Canby,    1800 
■I  Ann  Johnson,  1804 
I  Mary   Sheeds,    1806 
[Hannah    Kelter,    1835 
(  Frances   Fell.    1801 
I  Esther  B.  Fell,  1815 

Mary  Roberts,   1802 

[Susanna  Betts.   1804 

I  Marv  Stapler,  7th.  Mo.  1805 

^  Elizabeth   S.   Jones,    1820 

I  Two   pieces   with   alphabet,   no 

[      date 

[  Martha   Palmer  Nancev,   1804 

-i  Martha   Palmer,   1810 

[Anna  Bunting,   1818 

j  Name   not  given,   1803 

}  Abigail  R.   Swartzlander 

5  Susan  Schleiffer,  (b  1804,  d.  1900) 

(  Elizabeth  Funk,  two,  1844  and  1850 

\  Eleanor   Hughes,   1805 

1  Hannah   Gilbert.    1811 

Rachel  Woolston,  1806 

Mary  Moore,   1807 
fjane  Roberts.  1808 
I  Jane  R.  Mather,  1831 
(Martha   Betts.    1807 
I  Hannah   Smith,   1830 

Mary  T.   Burrows,   1810 

Elizabeth  Pawning.   1812 

Rachel   Broadhurst.    1812 


Mourning  Picture,    1812 
5  Mary  Yardley,  alphabet,  1813 
[Mary  Yardley,   (darned),   1819 

Susan  Magill,  1812 

Elizabeth  Warner.    1813 

Ruth  Cottman.   1813 

Elizabeth  W.   Carey.   1850 

Sarah   Eastburn,    1815 
j  Esther  B.  Fell,  1815 
(E.  T.,   1818 
(  Sarah   Betts,   1817 
I  "Why  is  our  food  so  very  sweet 
I    Because  we  earn  before  we  eat. 
-     Why  is  our  wants  so  very  few 
Because  we  nature  calls  persue." 

Marie  E.   Smith,   1824  —  Aged  9 
years 

Mary  Book.  1817 

Patience  Heston,  1820.  age  16  yrs. 


356 


BUCKS    COUNTY    SAMPLERS 


PERSONS   LOANING 
SAMPLERS 

Mrs.  Harold  Gillingham,  German- 
town 

Rev.  J.  B.  Krewson,  Forest  Grove 

Mrs.  C.  R.  Nightingale,  Doylestown 
Mrs.  Alfred  Marshall,  Langhorne 
Miss  Addie  Buckman,  Doylestovi^n 
Mrs.   A.   M.   Keys,   Bristol 
Mrs.  Thomas  L.  Allen,  Langhorne 
Miss   Helen   Gilkeston,   Bristol 
Mrs.  Edward  S.  Hutchinson,  New- 
town 
Miss  R.  S.  Tinsman.  Lumberville 
Miss  Emma  Trego  Fell,  Holicong 
Mrs.  S.  B.  Farren,  Doylestown 
Miss  Ray  Roberts,  Quakerstown 
Mrs.  Frederick  G.  Le  Roy  Newtown 

Miss   Belle   Van   Sant,   Newtown 

Mrs.   F.   H.   Fluck,   Quakertown 
Mrs.  James  Groff,  Doylestown 
Miss  Louisa  Buckman,  Doylestown 
Mrs.  Arthur  Leatherman,  Doyles- 
town 
Mrs.  H.  W.  Atkinson,  Doylestown 
Mrs.  A.   B.   Sellers,   Chalfont 

[ 
Miss  Laura   Haines.   Doylestown        i 

Mrs.  Oliver  Bergey,  Doylestown 
Mrs.  William  Opdyke,  New  Hope 
Mrs.   David  Nyce,  Doylestown 
Miss  Augusta  S.   Keim,   Bristol 

( 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society        -{ 


WHEN    AND    BY   WHOM 
WORKED 

\  Agnes  Lukens,  1820 
I  Adam   and   Eve    Pattern 
S  Jane  Wallace,   1820 
I  Rebecca  Wallace,    1827 

Mary   VanHorn,    1821 

Mary    Mathers,    1823 

Mar\'   Jamison,    1823 

Elizabeth   Marshall,  about   1825 

Sarah   Richardson,    1825 

Elizabeth   Kinsey,    1825 

Rachel  Childs,  1825  aged  22  years 

Rebecca  W.  Small,  Sep.  20,  1824 

Rebecca   Thorne,    1827 

Susan  Geary,   1832 

Martha   C.   Roberts,    1834 

Delia   A.    Hopkins,    1834 
(Jane   Willet    (Van   Sant)    1837, 
I      aet.   11 

Mary   Shupp,    1840 

Louisa    Cadwallader,    1841 

Louisa   Buckman,    1848 

Two  samplers,   1852 

Magdalene  S.  Parry,  two  samplers 

Mary  Betts 
[  Lydia  Ashbridge  Way 
\  Ann   Way 
[  Sydney  JefiFeris  Way 

Not  given 

Not  given 

Two  samplers,   no  data  given 

Not  given 

Westtown  School,  1802 

Martha  Lacey,  1810 
[Stewart,  E.  S.,  1810 


History  of  Church's  School  in  Buckingham  Township. 

BY   MRS.  CLAYTON  U.    (ANNIE   MEREDITH)    FRETZ.  SELLERSVILLE.   PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting-,  June   18,   1921.) 

WE  naturally  take  a  great  interest  in  the  schools  we  at- 
tended in  the  early  years  of  our  lives,  when  impressions 
are  the  most  indelible,  and  we  like  to  compare  the  pres- 
ent with  the  past. 

We  learn  that  Buckingham  township  was  fortunate  in  the 
quality  of  her  early  schools.  Thomas  Smith  gave  a  lot  of  ground 
whereon  the  "Red  School  House"  was  built.  "Tyro  Hall"  was 
erected  in  1790.  The  "Hughesian  Free  School"  in  1811,  and  the 
"Martha  Hampton  and  Hannah  Lloyd  Boarding  School  for 
Girls"  in  1830.  Another  one  is  "Church's  School",  which  is  lo- 
cated nearly  four  miles  east  of  Doylestown. 

Richard  Church  produced  at  Buckingham  Monthly  Meeting  of 
Friends,  9th  month.  4th  day,  1729,  a  certificate  from  Ireland  dated 
2nd  month.  4th  day,  1729.  He  was  born  in  Ireland,  but  was  of 
English  ancestry.  He  married  Sarah  Fell  in  1735  and  settled  on 
the  northwest  corner  of  the  tract  of  two  hundred  sixty-five 
acres  patented  to  him  by  John  Penn,  Thomas  Penn,  and  Richard 
Penn  in  1741,  having  had  possession  before  the  patent  was  issued. 
It  was  part  of  the  five  hundred  acres  laid  out  by  Cutler  in  his 
resurvey,  to  the  proprietaries  in  accordance  with  orders  given 
to  lay  out  that  quantity  in  each  township  not  fully  taken  up. 
Church  lived  there  until  his  death  in  1822.  He  had  nine  children, 
three  sons,  Moses,  John,  and  Joseph,  and  six  daughters.  Of  the 
sons  only  one,  Joseph  married,  and  he  and  Moses  lived  on  the 
old  plantation  and  all  are  buried  in  a  little  walled  graveyard  back 
in  the  fields  not  far  from  the  schoolhouse. 

Some  descendants  of  the  sisters  and  daughters  of  Joseph 
Church  still  reside  in  the  neighborhood  but  the  name  of  Church 
is  extinct  in  that  locality.  Sarah  Church,  eldest  daughter  of 
Joseph,  married  Jonas  Fell,  and  they  were  the  grandparents  of 
Dr.  John  A.  Fell  of  Doylestown.  His  second  daughter,  Eleanor, 
married   Moses  Bradshaw,   but   thev   removed   to   Indiana.     His 


358        HISTORY  OF  church's  SCHOOL  IN   BUCKINGHAM   TOWNSHIP 

third  daughter,  Elizabeth,  married  Benjamin  Carhsle,  and  they 
have  descendants  hving  in  the  neighborhood. 

About  the  year  1801  Joseph  Church  leased  a  small  plot  of 
ground  to  his  neighbors,  for  the  establishment  of  a  school,  and 
entered  into  the  f ollo\ying  agreement : 

An  agreement  made  and  entered  into  by  us  the  subscribers  for  the 
purpose  of  building  a  schoolhouse  on  a  piece  of  land  belonging  to 
Joseph  Church  and  laying  by  the  Doylestown  road,  and  bounded  by 
land  belonging  to  Joseph  Fell  on  the  southwest  side  for  which  land  I, 
Joseph  Church  engages  to  give  a  least  in  trust  to  such  persons  as  shall 
be  hereafter  appointed  to  take  one,  for  the  use  of  a  school  for  the  term 
of  ninety-nine  years,  and  have  agreed  to  build  a  house  of  stone  and 
laid  in  lime  and  sand  mortar,  to  be  twenty  feet  wide  and  twenty-six 
feet  long,  to  be  one  story  high  and  have  appointed  John  Bradshaw  and 
Isaiah  Michener  to  employ  workmen,  provide  materials,  and  superin- 
tend the  building  the  house.  And  we  also  bind  ourselves  our  heirs 
and  executors  to  pay  in  money,  labor  or  materials,  such  sums  as  are 
annexed  to  our  names,  unto  the  aforesaid  John  Bradshaw  and  Isaiah 
Michener.  We  further  agree  that  if  the  first  subscription  should  prove 
insufficient  to  complete  the  house  we  will  advance  in  proportion  to  our 
subscription,  and  if  there  should  be  any  over  plus  it  shall  be  returned 
in  the  same  proportion. 

This  lease  w^ith  the  names  of  the  subscribers  and  the  several 
amounts  annexed  was  found  to  be  insufficient,  as  only  seventy-six 
pounds,  nine  shillings  and  six  pence  of  the  required  sum  had 
been  subscribed.  It  was  again  circulated  and  the  necessary 
amount  was  realized,  one  hundred  and  nine  pounds,  five  shillings, 
and  four  pence;  equivalent  to  $291. 37j^. 

The  increased  subscriptions  were  made  by  the  same  twenty- 
nine  persons  whose  names  were : 

Thomas  Michener,  John  Bradshaw,  John  Fell,  Elisha  Mich- 
ener, Cornelius  Shepherd,  Jonathan  Fell,  Jr..  John  Shaw,  Thomas 
Fell,  Samuel  Gillingham,  Samuel  Gilbert,  Robert  Waker,  Joseph 
Church,  Isaiah  Michener,  Meshack  Michener,  Jr.,  William 
Sands,  Jonas  Fell,  Asa  Fell,  Jr.,  Samuel  Delp,  Abraham  Myers, 
Jonathan  Large,  John  Hughes,  Benjamin  Cadwallader,  Thomas 
Fell,  Meschack  Michener,  Sr.,  Joseph  Shepherd,  Jesse  Dean, 
Jesse  Wilson,  George  Delp,  Jonathan  Fell. 

In  due  course  of  time  the  house  was  built,  and  the  carpenter 
presented  his  bill,  which  was  paid,  and  the  following  receipt  given  : 


HISTORY  OF  church's  SCHOOL  IN   BUCKINGHAM   TOWNSHIP        359 

Alarch  6,  1804,  Then  received  of  John  Bradshaw  four  pounds,  ten 
shilhngs,  eight  pence,  being  the  full  demand,  I  say  received  by  me. 
($12.07),  William   Sands. 

In  order  to  obtain  money  to  purchase  a  stove  for  the  school- 
house  another  subscription  Hst  was  circulated  among  the  patrons, 
as  follows : 

"We  the  undersigned  subscribers  do  agree  to  purchase  a  new  stove 
and  pipe  suitable  for  the  schoolhouse,  and  to  pay  the  several  sums  here- 
unto annexed  unto  John  Bradshaw  and  Samuel  Gillingham  for  the 
purpose  for  purchasing  said  stove,  and  completing  it  for  use. 

The  amount  subscribed  was  $24.33. 

As  soon  as  this  was  accompHshed  the  school  was  ready  for  the 
scholars  and  the  teacher,  but  where  can  we  find  a  record  ot 
their  names  ? 

The  present  secretary  of  the  township  school  board,  William  B.. 
Carver,  gives  this  information :  "The  oldest  record  I  find  in  the 
minute  book  of  1842,  is  an  order  drawn  in  favor  of  George  Wag- 
ner for  teaching  one  hundred  and  sixty-three  days  at  Church's 
school,  the  sum  of  $181.66. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  children  having  poor  parents 
were  not  deprived  of  the  means  of  getting  an  education,  but 
were  educated  at  the  county  expense.  The  assessors  of  each 
township  were  required  to  report  the  names  of  the  children  of 
parents  who  could  not  afiford  to  pay  for  their  edvication.  The- 
bills  were  sent  to  the  county  commissioners  and  were  then  paid.. 
In  1829  this  amounted  to  $3,589.97  for  the  county,  and  was- 
published  in  the  Bucks  County  Republican,  and  Anti-Masonic- 
Register,  January  26,  1830. 

In  the  early  history  of  our  country,  schoolhouses  were  fre- 
quently built  in  close  proximity  to  churches,  and  were  maintained 
by  the  church  members,  but  Church's  school  was  located  at  some 
distance  from  any  church  or  meeting  house  and  was  accordingly 
used  for  all  purposes  needed  in  the  neighborhood,  social,  educa- 
tional and  religious.  We  learn  that  in  1843  a  meeting  was  held 
there  to  celebrate  Washington's  birthday,  at  which  Mr.  John 
Rogers  delivered  the  address.  In  the  same  year  a  debate  was 
had  on  the  "Woman  Question",'  an  account  of  which  was  writ- 
ten by  Mrs.  George  M.  Child,  then  residing  near  Sands'  Corner 

1  The  daughter  of  Geoi-ge  M.  and  Mary  Thomas  Child  married  Dr.  Joseph 
B.  Walter.     See  page  84  ante. 


360        HISTORY  OF  church's  school  in    BUCKINGHAM   TOWNSHIP 

and  published  by  Mr.  Sellers  in  the  Olizr  Branch.  The  earliest 
known  minister  who  occasionally  preached  there  was  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Magoffi. 

There  are  several  interesting  items  culled  from  an  old  letter 
of  1837.  One  is,  that  Doylestown  had  four  free  schools  at  that 
time,  and  it  is  quite  probable  that  the  older  pupils  of  Church's 
school  district  went  there,  as  they  do  now,  to  enjoy  opportunities 
for  higher  education.  It  is  a  fact  also  that  male  teachers  were 
most  in  demand.  In  1843  a  young  woman  wished  to  teach  in 
Centreville,  but  the  employers  preferred  a  male  teacher  and  there- 
for chose  Mr.  Richard  Watson,  who  later  became  judge  of  the 
Bucks  county  courts.  After  a  few  years  this  condition  was 
changed.  An  elderly  woman  upon  a  certain  occasion  made  the 
remark,  that  her  first  teacher  was  a  woman-  and  she  was  so  kind 
that  she  ever  remembered  her  with  a  great  deal  of  affection. 

But  whoever  they  were,  their  influence  for  good  was  of  the 
greatest  to  the  generation  in  which  they  lived. 

All  honor  then  to  our  ancestors,  who  by  their  perseverance 
and  industry  established  our  country  schools. 

An  explanation  is  due  to  account  for  the  old  John  Bradshaw 
papers.  His  daughter,  Phebe,  married  Hugh  Meredith,  who  lived 
many  years  on  a  farm  between  Sands'  Corner  and  the  road  to 
Centreville.  After  his  death  these  long  treasured  letters,  ac- 
counts, settlements  of  estates,  etc..  were  inherited  by  a  great- 
granddaughter,  the  writer  of  this  paper. 

2  The  teacher  referred  to  was  Jane  Robinson,  who  married  Robert  Thomp- 
son. The  first  teacher  at  Sandy  Ridge  school  in  Doylestown  township,  was 
Hannah  Yarnal  Meredith,  who  married  S.  S.  Gregory  of  Ohio. 


DIPNET  DESCRIfJED   ON   PAGE   366 


Old  Methods  of  Taking  Fish. 

BV    WARREN    FRETZ,   DOVLESTOWX,    PA. 
(Tohickon    Park    Meeting.    June    18.    1921.) 

IN  this  paper  I  will  endeavor  to  cover  some  of  the  old  methods 
of  fishing,  giving  special  attention  to  the  older  methods  which 
are  at  present  obsolete,  and  have  been  for  many  years.  The 
method  most  generally  used  for  securing  fish  for  food  was  spear- 
ing or  gigging.  This  was  an  easy  way  to  secure  large  quantities, 
as  the  stream  conditions  were  exceptionally  favorable  for  spear- 
ing. Especially  was  this  true  of  Tohickon  Creek  and  its  smaller 
tributaries.  Deep  Run,  for  instance.  Tinicum  Creek  was  also  an 
ideal  stream.  These  streams  run  shallow,  with  many  pools  and 
ripples  and  are  adapted  for  this  form  of  fishing. 

While  spearing  was  mostly  done  at  night,  it  required  good  fa- 
cilities for  artificial  light,  and  the  first  item  I  shall  take  up  is  that 
of  light. 

The  first  lights  used  were  the  pine  knot  and  "fockel."  The 
pine  knot  it  is  not  necessary  to  describe,  but  in  the  areas  where 
these  could  not  be  secured,  the  fockel  was  used,  which  as  I  un- 
derstand, was  superior  to  the  pine  knot,  as  it  produced  a  brighter 
light  and  was  used  in  the  same  manner  as  a  stave  fockel. 

The  light  next  in  use  was  the  gig  light,  constructed  of  tin, 
using  two  or  three  burners,  the  fuel  being  kerosene.  These  burn- 
ers were  constructed  tapering  and  were  soldered  to  the  bottom 
of  a  tin  container,  holding  from  two  to  four  quarts  of  kerosene. 
Cotton  wicking  was  tightly  drawn  into  the  burners.  A  large 
shield  was  placed  over  the  burners  to  deflect  the  rays  from  the 
operator's  eyes  and  to  cause  a  greater  reflection  of  light  on  the 
water.  These  lights  were  followed  by  the  acetylene  lamp  and 
the  electric  spot-light,  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  describe.  Both 
of  these  lighted  a  much  larger  area  than  the  pine  knot. 

Fockel. — The  fockel  was  constructed  usually  from  the  staves 
of  tar  barrels,  four  or  five  of  which  were  wired  together,  and  a 
pole  five  or  six  feet  long  was  used  for  a  handle.  This  was  car- 
ried by  one  man  over  his  shoulder,  who  proceeded  slowly  up 
stream,  followed  by  the  spearmen,  usually  two  or  three  in  num- 


362 


OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH 


ber.  When  tar  barrel  staves  could  not  be  secured,  strips  of  bark 
from  shellbark  hickory  trees,  or  pine  boards  were  used.  In  both 
of  these  latter  instances  the  bark  or  boards  were  soaked  in  tar 
and  dried,  then  bound  together  by  wire.  Sometimes  iron  rings 
were  used  for  this  purpose,  one  ring  six  inches  in  diameter,  the 
other  four,  into  which  the  bark  or  wood  was  driven  wedge- 
shaped.  Fockels  were  also  made  from  tar  and  flax-tow.  In  the 
construction  of  these,  a  broom-stick  was  dipped  in  tar,  and  the 

V  flax-tow  was  wrapped  around  it  very  tightly 

until  the   tar  was   completely   covered ;   this 
.....  was   then  again   dipped   in  the   tar  and   the 

^jjlr  process    continued   until    it    was    of    the    re- 

quired size,  usually  about  six  or  eight  inches 
Mp'  in  diameter.     A  fockel  of  that  size  was  suf- 

I  ficient  for  a  whole  night's  fishing. 

I  Spears  or  Gigs. — The  spear  or  gig,  as  it 

I  is  called,  was  constructed   from  a  piece   of 

flat  iron.  These  were  usually  made  by  a  local 
blacksmith,  forged  from  iron,  having  from 
three  to  four  prongs,  sometimes  more.  I 
have  seen  them  with  eight  prongs,  but  four 
was  about  the  usual  number.  These  prongs 
were  flat  and  blunt,  with  barbs  to  prevent 
fish  from  wriggling  off  when  struck.  I  have 
seen  them  constructed  with  prongs,  extend- 
ing in  four  directions,  crossing  at  right 
angles.  These  were  heavy  and  very  un- 
handy, and  not  common.  The  spear  was 
used  in  conjunction  with  the  lights  for  night 
fishing.  Ideal  conditions  were  dark  nights, 
with  no  wind,  as  under  this  condition,  fish 
could  be  readily  seen.  Windy  nights  were 
not  as  favorable,  as  the  wind  rippling  the  water,  made  conditions 
bad,  as  it  was  hard  to  locate  fish,  unless  in  very  shallow  water. 
Eight  to  sixteen  inches  of  water  is  a  good  depth  for  that  kind  of 
fishing  and  on  very  still  nights  fish  could  be  successfully  speared 
in  two  feet  of  water.  This  was  the  extreme  depth,  however. 
When  fish  were  located,  they  were  struck  with  the  spear.     The 


OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH  363 

spearmen  were  followed  by  one  or  two  men  with  a  fish  hommer. 
These  men  were  located  at  the  outlet  of  the  pools  and  when  the 
water  became  muddy  after  the  spearmen  passed  up  stream,  they 
turned  and  proceeded  back,  making  all  the  noise  and  splashing 
possible,  stirring  under  banks  and  driving  the  fish  before  them 
into  the  hommers  set  below.  I  will  describe  the  fish  hommer 
later  in  this  paper. 

Tin  Gig  Light. — The  mode  of  fishing  changed  somewhat  with 
the  advent  of  the  tin  gig-light.  This  light  was  not  nearly  so  cum- 
bersome as  the  fockel  and  the  spearman  carried  his  light  himself 
and  usually  had  some  one  to  carry  the  sack  to  place  the  fish  in. 
I  know  this  from  personal  experience,  as  I  was  the  victim  that 
carried  the  fish-bag  some  thirty  years  ago.  Some  of  my  neigh- 
bors arranged  to  go  fish-spearing  in  Tohickon  creek  and  I,  boy- 
like, was  very  anxious  to  join  the  expedition.  The  terms  were 
that  I  should  carry  the  fish-bag,  which  I  very  readily  agreed  to 
do.  We  fished  the  Tohickon  creek  from  Harpel's  bridge,  near 
Ottsville,  to  Stover's  dam  now  Tohickon  postofiice.  Floundering 
around  in  the  water,  sometimes  nearly  waist  deep,  over  slippery 
rocks  and  boulders,  with  a  load  of  fish,  was  not  a  boy's  job.  I 
fulfilled  my  contract  w^ith  aching  bone  and  muscle.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  I  never  entered  into  another  contract  of  that  kind,  it  was 
a  lesson  I  learned  as  a  boy  that  I  can  still  vividly  recall.  The 
spear  was  also  frequently  used  in  the  day  time.  Daylight  spear- 
ing, however,  was  only  practiced  in  the  early  spring  migrations 
and  when  the  creeks  were  normal  the  spearing  being  done  as  the 
fish  passed  up  over  the  shallow  riffles  towards  the  head  waters. 


Schlock  Isen. — The  "schlock  isen",  or  striking  iron,  its  Eng- 
lish name,  was  used  for  taking  fish  in  practically  the  same  man- 
ner as  with  the  gig  or  spear,  and  was  mostly  used  with  a  light  at 
night.  It  was  also  used  in  daytime  in  the  up-stream  migration 
of  fish  in  the  spring,  when  they  were  passing  over  the  rififles. 
The  striking  iron  was  made  in  the  shape  of  a  sword  from  a  piece 
of  iron  about  four  feet  long,  flat,  with  a  blunt  edge,  and  curved 


364 


OLD    METHODS  OF  TAKINX.   FISH 


up  the  narrow  way,  with  a  wooden  handle.  This  was  necessary 
for  if  not  curved  it  could  not  be  used  successfully,  the  resist- 
ance of  the  water  would  create  too  much  splash  and  the  blow 
could  not  be  accurately  given.  While  this  was  used  a  great  deal, 
its  use  was  not  as  general  as  that  of  the  spear.  It  was  successful 
for  striking  suckers,  but  not  for  eels  as  many  of  them  would  get 
away,  whereas  this  was  impossible  with  the  spear. 
Another  disadvantage  was  the  mutilation  of  the 
fish,  and  for  that  reason  the  practice  was  not  as 
general  as  was  the  use  of  the  spear. 

Ice  Fishing. — I  will  try  to  explain  methods  of 
ice  fishing  from  personal  experience  as  well  as 
from  descriptions  by  persons  who  have  used 
other  dififerent  methods.  I  will  first  take  the 
metnods  practiced  in  this  county.  Killing  fish  by 
striking  the  ice  with  a  heavy  mallet  like  those 
shown  on  the  margin  hereof,  or  an  axe  was  used 
m  many  cases.  When  the  water  froze  over  with 
clear  crystal  ice  so  the  bottom  of  the  stream  was 
visible,  conditions  were  right  for  this  method  of 
fishing.  By  walking  over  the  ice,  fish  could  be 
located,  and  by  striking  a  heavy  blow  on  the  ice 
the  fish  would  be  stunned.  A  hole  was  then 
cut  in  the  ice  and  the  fish  secured.  Hooking  fish 
through  ice  was  accomplished  by  having  a  burr 
hook  made  on  an  iron  rod,  with  a  wooden  handle,  the  length 
over  all  being  about  six  feet.  A  large  hole  was  chopped  in  the 
ice  over  deep  pools.  Usually  one  man  stood  at  the  opening  in 
the  ice,  while  another  would  circle  around  and  drive  the  fish 
to  the  opening.  With  a  quick,  upward  motion,  the  fish  was 
hooked  and  thrown  out  on  the  ice.  In  small  ponds  this  could 
often  be  accomplished  by  one  man  alone.  This  method  was 
practiced  a  great  deal  in  Cook's  creek,  near  Rattlesnake  hill  in 
Durham  township,  and  in  Springfield  township  and  as  far  as 
I  can  learn,  was  the  only  place  where  this  hook  was  used.  I 
was  able  to  secure  one  to  exhibit  for  this  occasion.  (Exhibits 
hook.)  Spearing  fish  through  the  ice  was  doubtless  not  prac- 
ticed locally.     This  was  done  by  cutting  a  hole  through  the  ice 


% 


OLD    METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH  365 

sufficiently  large  to  operate  the  spear  and  remove  the  fish  after 
being  speared.  The  spearman  used  a  metal  minnow  dangling 
from  a  string  and  by  keeping  the  string  in  motion  the  minnow- 
would  have  the  appearance  of  being  alive.  When  the  fish 
would  strike  the  minnow  the  spearman  would  strike  the  fish. 
I  presume  that  this  was  quite  a  sporting  proposition  as  it  no 
doubt  took  some  practice  to  become  adept  enough  to  do  it 
successfully  and  it  probably  required  a  great  deal  of  skilh  to 
become  proficient  in   spearing  fish. 

Use  of  the  Tip-up  in  Ice  Fishing. — A  tip  up  was  made  from 
a  flat  board,  about  sixteen  inches  long.  A  hole  was  bored  into 
one  end  for  the  line,  and  about  six  inches  further  another  hole 
was  bored  sufficiently  large  to  use  a  stick  of  about  an  inch  in 
diameter,  this  stick  acting  as  a  pivot  on  which  the  tip-up  could 
swing,  the  heavier  end  of  the  board  resting  on  the  ice.  The 
line  and  bait  were  attached  to  the  other  end.  When  a  fish 
would  strike  the  minnow  the  tip-up  would  start  to  bob  up  as  a 
signal  and  attract  the  attention  of  the  fisherman.  With  fif- 
teen to  twenty  holes  and  tip-ups  scattered  over  a  considerable 
area,  one  man  would  have  to  hustle  to  keep  his  lines  baited  and 
remove  the  fish.  It  was  not  necessary  to  have  a  fire  as  the  exer- 
cise would  keep  the  operators  warm.  This  method  was  used 
in  large  inland  lakes  and  ponds  in  from  fifteen  to  twenty  feet 
of  water.  The  bait,  to  work  successfully,  should  be  within 
eighteen  inches  to  two  feet  from  the  bottom.  I  personally  have 
done  ice  fishing.  Not  having  tip-ups  I  cut  brush,  made  a  small 
hole  in  the  ice  and  tied  the  line  to  the  brush  at  the  bottom  by 
using  some  black  line  and  tied  a  red  string  on  the  line  and 
hung  it  over  the  end  of  the  brush.  When  the  red  string 
dropped  it  would  indicate  a  strike  and  the  rest  of  the  procedure 
is  the  same  as  with  the  tip-up. 

Snaring. — Another  method  used,  when  the  water  was  clear, 
was  snaring.  For  this  a  short  pole  was  used  wnth  a  string,  fas- 
tened to  the  end  by  a  very  thin  copper  wire  snood.  The  snood 
was  worked  over  the  fish  and  a  sudden  jerk  would  capture  the 
fish  as  the  loop  would  draw  up  sufficiently  tight  to  hold  the  fish. 

Use  of  Rye  Straw  in  Taking  Fish. — This  method  was  used 
in    Stover's   dam.    Mechanics    Vallev.      It    was    last    used    about 


366  OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH 

1890.  Thomas  Donat  employed  this  method  for  ice  fishing  as 
follows :  He  used  a  bundle  of  flail-threshed  long  rye  straw. 
The  bundle  of  straw  was  securely  tied  at  the  heads  and  the 
lower  band  taken  off.  A  hole  was  cut  in  the  ice  of  sufficient 
size  to  pass  the  bundle  through  the  butt-end  first.  The  straw 
was  then  forced  to  the  bottom  of  the  stream,  and  the  water 
would  spread  the  straw.  By  walking  over  the  ice,  the  fish 
would  hide  in  the  straw,  the  bundle  was  then  drawn  upwards, 
the  straw  would  hold  the  fish  until  they  were  out  of  the  water. 
All  that  was  necessary  was  to  shake  the  fish  out  on  the  ice  and 
gather  them  up.  This  method,  I  am  informed,  was  very  suc- 
cessful and  Mr.  Donat  is  the  only  man  I  have  been  able  to  learn 
of  who  practiced  this  method  of  securing  fish. 

Explosives. — In  the  use  of  explosives  for  destroying  fish, 
three  methods  were  employed.  The  two  chief  ones  were  dyna- 
mite and  fresh  lime.  This  was  probably  among  the  easiest 
methods  of  taking  fish,  and  the  results  were  always  certain. 
In  the  use  of  dynamite  all  that  is  necessary  is  a  percussion  cap 
and  a  piece  of  safety  fuse.  In  the  use  of  fresh  lime,  a  bottle 
is  filled  with  it,  corked  very  tightly,  with  a  small  perforation 
through  the  cork  to  admit  water  which  slacks  the  lime,  and  the 
steam  and  carbonic  acid  that  is  expelled  exploded  the  bottle  and 
kills  the  fish.  The  other  method  of  killing  fish,  is  by  the  ex- 
plosion of  calcium  carbide.  A  small  hole  is  punched  in  a  can  of 
carbide,  which  is  then  thrown  into  the  stream,  the  admission  of 
water  will  cause  an  explosion.  This  is  less  dangerous  and  more 
easily  handled  than  dynamite,  and  the  results  will  be  adequate. 
The  concussions  from  any  explosive  burst  the  air  bladders  of 
the  fish  and  they  are  then  gathered  from  the  surface.  This  is 
an  unsportsman  like  way  of  taking  fish,  and  is  now  punishable 
by  severe  penalties,  although  not  as  severe  as  such  heinous 
offences  deserve. 

DiPNETS. — A  dipnet  is  made  by  using  a  round  hoop  from  four 
to  six  feet  in  diameter.  The  net  is  suspended  from  the  hoop 
and  is  funnel  shaped.  This  is  operated  by  using  a  pole,  with  a 
rope  attached  and  the  net  dropped  into  a  pool  of  water.  During 
its  descent  the  fish  are  driven  away,  and  consequently  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  allow  the  net  to  rest  quietly  for  some  time, 


LAMPS   USED   FOR   GIGGING. 


THROWNET  DESCRIBED  ON   PAGE 


OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH  367 

after  which  the  tish  settle  towards  the  center,  and  are  then 
caught  in  the  net.  when  it  is  raised  and  they  are  then  taken.  It 
is  occasionally  necessary  to  bait  dip  nets.  These  were  used  in 
the  Delaware  river,  but  they  are  now  obsolete. 

Throw-nets. — These  are  made  circular,  similar  to  a  dip-net. 
The  dimensions  are  about  the  same,  average  diameter  about  five 
feet.  Instead  of  a  solid  iron  ring,  the  mouth  is  made  with  a 
heavy  lead-line  and  the  apex  of  the  net  is  up  instead  of  down 
as  in  the  dip-net.  The  net  is  one  and  a  half  inches  mesh,  cone- 
shoped,  with  a  ring  in  the  apex.  Small  ropes  are  fastened  to  the 
lead-line  on  the  inside  of  net.  These  pass  through  the  ring  and 
are  joined  together  on  a  swivel,  to  which  is  attached  the  operat- 
ing rope.  The  net  is  operated  from  the  bank  over  deep  pools. 
The  method  is  to  tie  the  rope  to  the  operator's  arm  on  which  it 
is  coiled,  then  take  the  lead-line  in  the  mouth  and  by  grasping  it 
by  the  other  hand,  you  make  a  swing  which  spreads  the  net  and 
it  settles  in  the  water  fully  extended.  Where  the  net  drops,  all 
fish  within  the  circle  of  the  lead-line  are  caught.  By  pulling  and 
jerking  the  lead-line  the  net  is  drawn  together  and  forms  a 
pocket  above  the  leads  in  which  the  fish  are  trapped.  It  is  the 
reverse  of  the  dipnet,  as  it  is  immediately  withdrawn  after  the 
cast  is  made  and  is  operated  from  pool  to  pool. 

Stake-net. — The  stake-net  was  used  in  tidewater  fishing. 
Stakes  were  driven  in  the  beach  along  low-water  mark,  usually 
along  marshes,  and  were  in  length  from  one  to  three  hundred 
yards,  according  to  conditions  along  the  shore  line.  The  net  was 
usually  about  two  feet  deep.  On  the  flow  of  the  tide,  the  water 
would  rise  over  the  net  and  the  fish  would  feed  on  the  marshes. 
On  the  ebb  tide  the  water  would  recede  and  the  fish,  dropping 
back  with  the  tide,  could  not  get  further  than  the  net.  This 
would  leave  the  fish  stranded  on  the  beach  where  they  could 
easily  be  secured. 

Eel-racks. — To  construct  an  eel-rack,  use  two  3  bv  4  inch 
scantling  fourteen  feet  long,  joined  together  by  cross-pieces,  two 
feet  apart.  The  scantling  should  be  five  feet  apart.  Take  lath 
for  bottom  and  sides,  one-half  by  one  inch,  sufficient  to  cover  bot- 
tom, and  raise  sides  eight  inches.     Laths  should  be  one-quarter- 


368  OLD    METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH 

inch  apart.  At  the  funnel-end  of  rack,  use  inch  boards  three  to 
four  feet  long,  and  lap  them  over  lath  six  inches.  These  boards 
must  be  tight.  In  the  mouth  of  the  rack  use  a  six-inch  board,  up- 
right. This  is  to  keep  the  eels  in  the  rack  so  they 
cannot  go  back  up  stream.  Under  the  down  stream 
end  of  rack,  bolt  on  two  uprights  of  sufficient 
strength  to  hold  the  rack,  and  of  sufficient  length  to 
raise  the  rack  above  the  level  of  the  flowing  water. 
This  will  check  and  hold  the  eels  from  going  over  the 
rack  and  allow  the  water  to  pass  through.  When 
the  rack  is  not  in  use,  it  can  be  lowered  and  every- 
thing will  pass  over  it.  Where  the  stream  is  too 
wide,  small  dams  were  built,  with  stones  and  rye 
straw  to  narrow  the  stream  to  the  width  of  rack. 
These  are  the  dimensions  of  a  rack  used  in  the  Dur- 
ham or  Cook's  creek  at  Rattlesnake  hill  and  in 
Springfield  township.  These  racks  were  operated 
in  the  fall  of  the  year,  about  the  time  the  leaves 
started  to  drop.  A  good 
time  was  when  the  streams 
started  to  rise  on  the  first 
fall  rains,  at  that  time  the 
eels  usually  started  their 
fall  migrations  to  the  sea. 
Eels  travel  down  stream 
head  first  and  differ  very 
much  from  other  fish  in 
this  respect,  as  fish  on  high 
water  go  down  stream  tail 
first.  This  accounts  for  no 
fish  being  caught  in  eel- 
racks.  A  fish  going  down 
would  strike  the  guard 
board  in  the  mouth  of  the 
rack  with  his  tail  and 
would  head  up  stream.  Eels  were  re- 
moved from  the  racks  with  wooden  ^^^  tongs 
tongs,  having  short,  blunt  nails  driven  into  the  jaws  like  those 
shown  on  margin.     Eel-racks  are  not  now  used,  excepting  prob- 


OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH  369 

ably  on  the  head  water  of  the  Delaware  river  as  they  are  not 
lawful  in  the  inland  streams. 

Bobbing  for  Eels. — This  was  a  sporting  pastime  indulged  in 
to  a  great  extent  before  methods  of  fishing  were  governed  and 
restricted  by  legislation.  In  bobbing  for  eels,  the  practice  in  mak- 
ing the  bobs  was  to  thread  a  needle  with  three  or  four  yards  of 
flax-thread,  and  with  a  good  supply  of  earth  worms,  thread  them 
on  the  thread,  then  bunch  them  together,  then  with  a  string 
fasten  them  to  a  short  pole,  setting  the  bob  down  on  the  bottom 
of  the  stream.  The  fishing  was  usually  done  out  of  a  boat.  The 
eels  bit  into  the  worms,  their  teeth  fastened  to  the  thread,  the  bob 
was  raised  up  over  the  boat  and  the  eels  would  drop  off.  Where 
a  boat  was  not  available,  and  you  bobbed  from  the  shore,  a  tub 
was  placed  in  the  stream  into  which  to  drop  the  eels,  as  the  fish 
could  not  be  secured  if  the  bob  was  held  at  an  angle  to  place  them 
on  the  shore.  The  tub  was  held  in  place  by  a  pole  sufiiciently 
long  to  secure  one  end  of  it  to  the  shore.  This  was  considered 
good  sport  and  was  practiced  a  great  deal  years  ago. 

Barrel  Fishing. — Make  a  hole  in  the  end  of  a  barrel,  and 
over  the  hole  place  a  flap,  then  put  a  quantity  of  slaughter-house 
refuse  in  the  barrel,  with  sufficient  ballast  to  sink  it  to  the  bottom 
of  the  stream.  This  placed  in  deep  water,  particularly  after  a 
rain,  will  catch  eels  by  the  bushel.  This  was  practiced  in  the 
Saucon  creek,  near  Hellertown,  Pa.,  some  years  ago  with  great 
success. 

Use  of  Walnut  Root  Bark  in  Taking  Trout. — This  method 
was  used  by  the  Cherokee  Indians  in  North  Carolina.  There 
were  times  when  the  trout  would  not  bite,  and  an  Indian  wants 
fish  when  he  is  hungry.  That  method  was  to  take  the  bark  from 
the  roots  of  walnut  trees,  crush  and  pulp  it  to  obtain  the  juices, 
which  is  then  poured  into  the  ripples  above  the  pools  in  which 
trout  abound.  The  action  of  the  juices  stupify  the  fish  and  they 
come  to  the  surface  and  are  then  gathered,  and  "Lo,  the  poor 
Indian,"  has  trout  for  his  supper,  apparently  an  easy  way  when 
trout  are  not  in  a  biting  mood. 

Gill-net  or  Floating-net. — These  are  used  for  tidewater 
fishing,  running  in  length  from  one  hundred  to  five  hundred  feet, 


370  OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH 

depending  on  the  width  of  water  to  be  fished.  The  gill-net  is  a 
straight  net  with  a  float-line  and  lead-line,  meshes  four  inches  and 
more,  woven  from  very  thin  twine.  In  working  a  gill-net,  one 
end  is  fastened  to  a  buoy  and  the  other  end  to  a  boat.  The  whole 
drifts  with  the  tide.  Fish  striking  the  net,  the  head  passes  through 
the  mesh.  When  the  fish  strike  this  barrier  they  try  to  back  out 
and  the  thin  mesh  holds  them  by  the  gills.  The  fish  are  removed 
by  hauling  in  the  net  and  then  leaving  it  out  again.  In 
fishing  with  the  gill-net.  the  fisherman  holds  the  float-line  and  can 
tell  when  a  fish  strikes  and  they  follow  up  the  net  as  previously 
described.  This  method  is  exclusively  a  tidewater  proposition,  al- 
though the  principle  has  been  used  in  smaller  streams,  but  in  that 
case  the  net  is  set  stationary  and  fish  are  driven  by  paddling  in 
a  boat  and  beating  the  water.  This  is  not  permissible  in  inland 
waters  and  is  punishable  by  heavy  penalties. 

Outline  or  Set-cord. — Outlines  were  principally  used  for 
taking  catfish  and  eels.  In  the  Delaware  river  perch,  rock  fish  and 
bass  were  also  taken.  The  length  of  an  outline  depending  on  the 
width  of  stream  to  be  fished,  the  usual  length  being  from  one 
hundred  to  five  hundred  feet  and  even  greater  in  length,  often 
reaching  from  shore  to  shore.  A  heavy  cord  was  stretched  across 
a  body  of  water  and  weighted  to  the  bottom,  with  hooks  fastened 
thereto  often  as  close  as  two  feet.  The  snoods  to  which  the 
hooks  were  fastened  were  usually  about  eighteen  inches  in  length 
and  were  tied  to  the  main  cord  with  a  loop-knot.  After  the  line 
was  set,  the  hooks  were  baited,  either  with  small  chunks  of  meat 
of  live  fish.  If  set  in  shallow  water  the  line  was  followed  by 
wading;  in  deep  waters  a  boat  was  used.  The  inspection  of  the 
line  was  repeated  at  short  intervals.  When  fish  were  caught  they 
were  removed,  the  hook  re-baited  and  again  dropped  in  the 
water.  Oftentimes  bait  and  hook  were  swallowed.  In  a  case  of 
that  kind,  the  snood  with  fish  was  removed  and  another  snood 
with  hook  substituted.  The  bait  generally  was  what  is  known  as 
dead  bait,  although  sometimes  outlines  were  set  for  game  fish  by 
using  live  bait.  Some  years  ago  a  set  line  was  used  in  the  Dela- 
ware river  for  taking  bass,  live  baits  were  used  and  the  line  was 
set  from  shore  to  shore.  The  outline  was  successful  only  when 
in  muddy  waters,  the  set-line  was  used  in  daytime,  in  clear  water 
it  was  used  at  nis'ht.     It  was  not  successful  in  clear  water  in  the 


OLD    METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH  371 

day  time  and  vice  versa;  but  results  were  about  the  same  when 
fished  under  the  conditions  noted. 

DiPSEV  OR  Handline. — 'lliis  was  at  one  time  practiced  a  great 
deal.  Dipsey  fishing  derived  its  name  from  a  chunk  of 
lead,  from  one-half  to  one  ounce  in  weight.  This  was  called  the 
dipsey  and  in  wide  waters,  where  no  boats  were  available,  the 
dipsey  was  used  to  carry  the  line  and  bait  out  into  midstream. 
The  usual  length  of  line  was  from  fifty  to  seventy-five  feet.  The 
line  was  carefully  coiled  on  the  bank,  and  usually  a  heavy  cord 
was  used  to  avoid  tangles.  The  cord  was  taken  in  the  left  hand 
about  eighteen  inches  from  the  dipsey,  this  was  twirled  in  a  ciru- 
lar  motion  until  sufficient  momentum  was  acquired  to  carry  the 
line  out  to  the  full  length,  the  end  of  the  cord  being  fastened  to 
a  stake  on  the  bank.  Usually  from  five  to  six  of  these  lines 
would  radiate  in  diflferent  directions  from  the  one  stake.  By 
watching  the  lines  a  strike  could  easily  be  located  by  the  motion 
of  the  line.  Occasionally  a  fisherman  would  fasten  a  small  bell 
to  the  stake  and  then  take  a  nap  and  depend  on  the  bell  to  warn 
him  of  a  strike.  The  dipsey  principle  is  only  used  now  in  bait- 
casting  with  rod  and  reel,  short  rod,  four  and  one  half  or  five  and 
one  half  feet,  with  a  free  running  reel,  and  weights  from  one- 
quarter  to  one-half  ounce,  casting  direcf  off  the  reel.  With  the 
overhead  cast  your  bait  can  be  easily  placed  from  seventy-five  to 
one  hundred  feet,  if  you  have  sufficient  practice  to  prOperly 
handle  a  bait-casting  outfit.  I  have  often  seen  fishermen  with  the 
finest  casting  outfits  fishing  along  our  streams  and  instead  of 
casting  from  the  reel,  place  their  bait  dipsey-fashion. 

Float  Fishing. — This  method  was  usually  practiced  in  large 
bodies  of  still  water  usually  in  large  dams  or  inland  ponds  and 
lakes.  A  float  was  made  from  a  one-quarter  inch  board,  two  and 
one-half  to  three  inches  wide  and  abovit  eight  inches  long.  The 
line  was  fastened  to  the  center  of  the  float ;  its  length  was  regu- 
lated by  the  depth  of  water,  which  was  often  from  three  to  eight 
feet  deep.  Sufficient  line  was  attached  to  the  float  so  that  part 
of  it  would  remain  on  the  surface  in  the  deepest  water  as  well  as 
the  shallow.  The  line  was  shortened  by  winding  around  the  float. 
If  a  fish  was  caught  and  made  for  deep  water  the  motion  of  the 
water  would  unwind  the  float  so  it  would  remain  on  the  surface. 


372  OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH 

In  float  fishing  one  hundred  floats  were  usually  about  the  number 
used,  and  by  the  action  of  the  floats  those  that  had  fish  could 
usually  be  ascertained  and  these  were  followed  by  boat  and  the 
fish  removed.  Dead  bait  being  usually  used,  although  in  ponds 
where  pickerel  were  found,  they  were  often  successfully  used 
with  live  bait.  I  recall  a  story  from  one  who  had  experienced 
that  they  used  toy  balloons  instead  of  the  wooden  floats  for 
pickerel  and  successfully  too.  This  method  has  been  tabooed  by 
legislation. 

Fish  Hommer  or  Single-brail  Scoop-net. — The  dimensions 
of  a  single-brail  scoop-net  are  as  follows:  Main  hoop  or  mouth, 
six  feet  in  width  at  the  lead  line,  thirty-eight  inches  high.  Brail 
is  a  forked  stick  five  feet  long;  forks,  twenty-six  inches  long  to 
lead-line,  with  a  spread  of  fourteen  inches.  The  brail  is  fastened 
to  cross  piece  eighteen  inches  from  the  lead  line ;  length  of  cross 
bar,  fifty-six  inches  ;  depth  of  net  from  mouth  to  tail,  thirty-six 
inches,  tapering  to  a  tail  ten  inches  in  diameter  and  three  feet, 
long;  length  of  net,  about  seven  feet.  This  form  of  net  was 
used  by  wading  the  stream,  usually  the  width  of  narrow  channels 
in  small  streams,  mill-races  and  places  of  that  sort,  the  scoop  was 
set  by  one  man  holding  the  brail  with  net  resting  on  the  bottom 
of  the  stream ;  and  anotJ;ier  man  beating  and  splashing  the  water 
to  scare  the  fish  into  the  net.  A  quick  upward  movement  of  the 
brail  would  bag  the  net  so  the  fish  could  not  get  out,  the  brail  was 
then  lifted  up  and  the  fish  taken  out  through  the  tail  end  of  the 
net.  This  was  frequently  used  in  connection  with  gigging  by 
artificial  light,  as  previously  explained  under  that  subject.  This 
is  entirely  different  from  the  regular  scoop-net,  as  they  have  a 
brail  at  each  end  are  used  to  scoop  out  the  fish  in  small  pockets 
along  the  banks  of  streams  with  pockets  in  the  eddies. 

Fyke,  Fish  Baskets  of  Set-net. — The  dimensions  of  a  fyke 
are:  Width  at  mouth,  fortyeight  inches;  height,  thirty  inches; 
diameter  at  mouth  of  funnel  or  trap,  twenty- four  inches  tapering 
to  three  inches  to  inlet  and  funnel  eighteen  inches  long ;  main  di- 
ameter of  basket,  about  20  inches  and  length  over  all  eight  feet. 
Net  is  extended  by  iron  hoops,  four  in  number.  The  funnel  is 
fastened  to  the  first  hoop  and  is  kept  in  position  by  strings 
fastened  to  the  third  hoop.     The  net  is  set  with  the  tail  or  basket 


FYKE   NET. 


SINGLE   BRAIL  SCOOP  NET  OR  HOMMER. 


OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH  373 

upstream  and  the  mouth  at  the  head  of  a  riffle.  Where  the  riffles 
are  wider  than  the  mouth  of  the  fyke,  small  dams  were  con- 
structed to  guide  the  fish  into  the  fykes  and  occasionally  in  wide 
water  net- wings  were  used,  which  often  extending  many  feet 
on  either  side.  Fykes  were  used  in  the  spring  for  the  up-stream 
migrations  of  suckers.  Years  ago  they  were  used  extensively  in 
the  shallow  riffles  in  the  Delaware  river,  some  of  them  of  large 
dimension,  sufficient  net  being  used  to  completely  shut  off  the 
narrow  channels  with  the  large  fyke  in  the  center  of  the  net.  A 
fyke  can  be  set  only  with  the  tail  up  stream  as  leaves  and  drift 
coming  down  with  the  current  would  soon  clog  the  mouth  and 
prevent  fish  from  entering,  the  fish  after  passing  through  the 
mouth  cannot  get  out  of  the  fyke  and  are  removed  through  the 
opening  in  the  tail  of  the  basket,  this  being  closed  by  a  draw 
string  arrangement.  Present  day  fykes  are  often  made  from 
one-quarter  inch  galvanized  wire,  some  with  a  trap  in  one  end 
and  others  made  longer  with  a  trap  in  each  end.  These  will 
catch  fish  both  coming  and  going.  I  secured  one  several  years 
ago  from  the  Neshaminy,  which  was  placed  there  in  a  narrow 
channel  below  a  riffle  and  baited  with  meat  to  attract  fish.  This 
one  was  a  double  ender. 

Spinners. — I  should  not  fail  also  to  mention  the  spinner.  This 
probably  is  one  of  the  highest  attainments  for  taking  fish  with 
artificial  lures.  They  come  in  all  sizes  and  shapes,  are  adaptable 
to  both  fly-rod  and  bait  fishing,  can  be  used  with  any  and  all 
kinds  of  baits  and  are  constructed  single  and  tandem.  I  have 
personally  used  spinners  successfully  in  many  combinations  and 
have  caught  small-mouth  bass  with  a  small  spinner  and  a  small 
patch  of  white  cotton  goods  or  red  flannel.  The  story  of  the  dis- 
covery of  the  spinner  is  as  follows :  While  fishing  for  pickerel 
from  a  boat  on  a  day  that  pickerel  were  not  biting,  the  fisherman 
came  to  shore  disgusted.  In  stepping  out  of  the  boat  a  small 
piece  of  broken  spoon  dropped  from  his  outfit  struck  the  water 
and  started  to  ricochet  on  the  water  when  a  large  pickerel  struck 
it.  The  fisherman  then  took  a  silver  dime  and  made  a  small 
spinner,  attached  it  to  a  line  and  made  the  first  spinner  to  take 
fish  when  all  other  baits  had  failed.  And  thus  the  spinner  con- 
tinues to  take  fish,  if  properly  used. 


374  OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING   FISH 

Rods  and  Lines. — This  subject  is  probably  too  well  known  to 
enter  into  a  lengthy  discussion,  as  the  rod  and  line  today  is 
probably  more  used  than  at  any  time  since  fish  were  first  caught. 
This  is  especially  true  as  it  applies  to  the  game  fishes.  The  rods 
first  used  were  usually  cut  along  the  streams  from  sprouts  of  the 
different  woods  and  ordinary  twine  was  used  for  a  line,  and  the 
bent  pin  for  a  hook.  This  was  followed  by  the  ordinary  bamboo 
pole,  then  the  split  bamboo,  made  into  very  substantial  bait  and 
fly  casting  rods.  With  this  advent  came  the  reel  and  the  finer 
grades  of  silk  lines,  constructed  very  light,  yet  of  sufificient 
strength  to  successfully  out-manoeuvre  any  fish,  regardless  of 
size  or  gameness.  With  this  came  the  barbed  hook.  Rods  and 
lines  were  first  used  with  live  bait,  worms,  different  species  of 
minnows  and  underwater  bait,  such  as  helgramites,  crayfish,  tad- 
poles, etc.,  all  used  for  the  purpose  of  securing  game  fishes.  As 
the  art  of  casting  became  more  of  an  accomplishment  and  the 
fisherman  became  proficient  in  the  use  of  the  reel,  these  natural 
baits  became  less  used  and  were  supplanted  by  the  imitations  of 
the  natural  live  baits,  such  as  plugs,  surface  and  underwater,  and 
in  such  designs  as  to  imitate  everything  on  the  water,  under  the 
water,  on  the  earth  and  under  the  sun,  and  many  imitations  never 
seen  under  the  sun;  yet  they  will  catch  fish,  if  properly  handled. 
Floating  bugs  are  now  constructed  of  sufficient  weight  to  be 
used  in  casting.  Rods  can  be  secured  made  of  steel,  both  jointed 
and  telescope.  Next  comes  the  fly-rod.  These  are  usually  made 
from  split  bamboo,  this  being  the  most  substantial  and  more  pli- 
able than  the  heavier  woods.  The  construction  of  a  fly  rod  to 
balance  perfectly  and  handle  properly,  is  a  science.  Rods  of  this 
character  run  in  length  from  eight  to  ten  and  one-half  feet,  and 
in  weight  from  two  to  seven  ounces.  This  is  usually  the  extreme 
weight  and  the  lighter  rods  are  used  only  in  fly  fishing  with 
enameled  line  and  gut  leaders.  Leaders  average  from  three  to 
nine  feet  in  length.  The  wet  fly  can  be  easily  handled  on  an  out- 
fit of  this  kind  and  is  fished  down  stream  and  is  an  underwater 
bait.  The  handling  of  a  fly  takes  a  great  deal  of  practice  on  the 
part  of  the  fisherman  and  is  the  last  test  of  a  real  fisherman  or 
the  man  that  has  passed  out  of  the  amateur  class  into  a  profes- 
sional class,  as  he  will  not  consider  anything  but  the  dry  fly.  The 
dry  fly  is  an  entirely  different  creation  from  a  wet  fly,  is  always 


OLD   METHODS  OF  TAKING    FISH  375 

fished  up  stream  and  is  entirely  a  surface  bait.  The  hackle  and 
wings  on  the  dry  fly  stand  up,  whereas  on  the  wet  fly  they  lie  flat. 
The  perfect  outfit  for  dry  fly  fishing  should  consist  of  a  two  or 
three  ounce  rod,  length  about  nine  and  one-half  feet ;  a  tapered 
six  feet;  leader  and  a  tapered  gut  to  join  fly,  an  outfit  that  today 
would  cost  $100.  With  an  outfit  of  that  kind,  you  can  place  a 
fly  on  the  water  just  as  a  real  fly  would  actually  alight,  and  place 
it  at  the  right  spot. 

To  fish  successfully  you  must  know  fish,  their  habits,  etc.,  and 
you  wall  come  home  with  a  creel  full.  Flies  are  made  in  imitation 
of  all  insects  that  are  found  along  the  water  and  in  recent  years 
the  imitations  have  been  extended  to  imitate  the  larva  of  many 
insects  found  along  streams,  as  fish  feed  a  great  deal  on  this 
larva.  So  the  fisherman  who  knows  when  they  are  not  surface- 
feeding  offers  them  the  underwater  food.  I  am  not  able  in  this 
article  to  take  up  the  different  methods  of  rod  and  reel  fishing  in 
detail,  as  volumes  have  been  written  covering  only  a  portion  of 
these  different  subjects.  As  to  the  dry  fly  fisherman,  he  carries 
his  little  bottle  of  dry  fly  oil,  made  from  deer  fat,  as  he  has  to 
occasionally  oil  his  line  and  fly  to  keep  it  dry.  This  is  a  small 
bottle,  with  a  leather  loop,  buttoned  on  to  a  vest  button.  The  dry 
fly  is  the  highest  obtainable  in  fishing,  and  when  you  can  handle 
that  you  are  a  real  fly  fisherman,  so  much  so  that  the  real  fly 
fisherman  of  today  demands  a  barbless  hook,  for  fishing.  The- 
barbless  hook  is  the  delight  of  the  highest  type  of  fisherman  and. 
the  introduction  is  so  recent  that  they  cannot  as  yet  be  secured  in: 
a  commercial  way,  their  use  has  been  confined  to  the  fisherman 
who  constructs  his  own  tackle,  and  ties  his  own  flies.  The 
man  who  buys  his  flies  can  only  substitute  by  filing  the  barbs  off 
of  the  commercial  flies.  The  satisfaction  of  landing  the  fish  on. 
the  barbless  hook  is  true  sportsmanship  in  at  least  giving  the  fish 
an  even  break  to  out-maneuver  him  in  bringing  him  to  creel,, 
quite  in  contrast  with  the  barbarious  methods  described  in  the 
early  part  of  this  paper. 

I  have  given  just  a  few  of  the  baits  that  are  offered  as  the  best 
for  a  full  creel.  I  heard  it  stated  recently  that  the  best  bait  for 
fishing  under  any  and  all  conditions  of  weather  and  water  and 
the  different  species  of  fishes  is  "brains."  These  properly  used 
at  the  rod-end  of  the  fishing  tackle  will  bring  results. 


Early  History  of  Washington's  Crossing  and  Its  Environs. 

BY   WARREN   S.   ELY,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Read  at  the  opening  of  Memorial  Park,  Wasliing-ton's  Crossing,  Oct.  1,  1921.) 

WHILE  I  feel  greatly  honored  at  being  selected  by  your 
committee  of  arrangements  to  read  a  historical  paper  at 
this  meeting,  I  had  great  reluctance  in  undertaking  to 
deliver  an  address  on  the  subject  of  the  Battle  of  Trenton,  for  the 
reason  that  greater  historians  than  I  have  fully  covered  this 
ground  already.  General  W.  S.  Stryker,  in  his  "Battles  of  Tren- 
ton and  Princeton,"  has  given  a  detailed  history  of  the  move- 
ments of  the  army,  which  is  unquestionably  reliable,  as  he  had 
original  material  from  which  to  gather  his  data.  On  this  very 
spot  June  14,  1902,  General  W.  W.  H.  Davis  read  a  paper  be- 
fore a  meeting  of  the  Society  of  Sons  of  the  Revolution,  to  which 
he  gave  the  title  "The  Alpha  and  Omega  of  the  Revolution." 
This  address,  which  was  published  in  full  by  the  society  and  also 
by  General  Davis,  so  fully  covers  the  history  of  the  movements 
of  the  contending  armies  in  Bucks  county,  and  the  Delaware  and 
Schuylkill  peninsula,  that  I  have  frequently  said,  and  here  re- 
iterate, that  it  ought  to  be  a  text  book  in  every  public  school  in 
Bucks  county.  Much  also  has  been  written  by  other  historians 
about  the  Battle  of  Trenton,  which  was  unquestionably  the  turn- 
ing point  in  the  struggle  for  independence. 

I  therefore,  propose,  in  this  brief  address,  to  confine  myself 
entirely  to  local  incidents  and  history  and  to  an  effort  to  correct 
a  few  minor  errors  made  in  the  pamphlet  issued  by  this  commis- 
sion and  supplement  the  history  given  therein,  giving  more  fully 
the  location  of  the  different  camps  and  commands  during  the  in- 
terval between  December  6  and  26,  1776,  and  also  to  give  some 
history  of  this  historic  site  from  the  time  of  the  first  settlement. 
This  site  has  been  an  historic  one  from  the  time  of  the  first 
settlement  of  the  English  on  the  Delaware.  This  point  marks  the 
line  between  the  lands  taken  up  by  the  first  Quaker  settlement  and 
those  taken  up  by  the  Scotch  Irish  and  other  later  settlers. 

Lying  next  above  the  Hough  tract  was  the  Proprietor's  Manor 
of  Highlands,  which  extended  up  into  Solebury  near  the  lower 


EARLY   HISTORY  OF  WASHINGTON  S   CROSSING  O// 

line  of  the  present  borough  of  New  Hope  and  back  from  the 
river  to  Newtown  and  Wrightstown  townships.  That  part  of 
the  manor  now  lying  in  Solebury  was  sold  to  actual  settlers  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  remainder  was  patented  to  the  Pennsy- 
lvania Land  Company  of  London,  commonly  referred  to  as  the 
London  Company. 

On  the  last  named  tract  was  tried  one  of  the  two  experiments 
in  the  colonization  of  Pennsylvania,  to  provide  homes  for  tenant 
farmers  and  establish  a  mild  form  of  feudalism,  such  as  existed 
in  England.  The  London  Company  divided  up  their  tract  into 
farms  varying  in  size  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred  and  fifty 
acres  and  leased  them  to  settlers,  unimproved,  with  privilege  of 
acquiring  title  to  improvements.  On  these  farms  settled  new- 
comers, many  of  them  Ulster  Scots  and  other  persons  of  small 
means.  But  the  cheapness  of  land  prevented  the  success  of  the 
scheme,  and  the  London  Company  sold  out  their  lands  in  1760 
and  they  were  largely  purchased  by  the  tenants  or  their  descend- 
ants. The  London  Company  had  another  large  tract  in  Tinicum, 
and  others  in  Chester  and  other  counties. 

This  site  is  part  of  the  tract  of  three  hundred  acres  taken  up 
by  Henry  Baker  in  1684,  and  was  known  as  Baker's  Ferry  for 
nearly  a  century.  Lying  just  above  it  was  the  tract  of  Richard 
Hough  and  lying  next  below  w^ere  the  two  tracts  taken  up  by 
Joseph  and  Daniel  Milnor,  and  below  them  was  the  first  home  of 
the  Harvey  family,  founded  by  Matthias  Harvey,  who  purchased 
one  thousand  acres  laid  out  to  Thomas  Hudson.  Richard  Hough 
and  Henry  Baker,  with  William  Yardley  and  Thomas  Janney, 
whose  homes  were  within  five  miles  of  this  point,  were  among 
the  chief  advisors  and  friends  of  William  Penn,  and  all  promi- 
nent members  of  the  early  assembly  and  council.  Richard  Hough 
did  not  reside  on  the  tract  lying  above  Baker's  but  upon  another 
tract  five  miles  south  of  this  point  near  the  line  of  Falls  town- 
ship. He  came  from  Macclesfield  in  the  County  of  Chester,  Eng- 
land, arriving  in  the  Delaware  river  in  the  ship  "Endeavor  of 
London,"  7  mo.  29,  1683.  Makefield  was  originally  called  Mac- 
clesfield, and  was  named  for  the  former  residence  of  Richard 
Hough.  He  took  an  active  part  in  all  affairs  in  the  early  history 
of  our  county — political,  social  and  religious.  His  house  was  one 
of  the  meeting  places  of   Friends  before  the   erection   of   Falls 


378  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING 

Meeting  House.  He  represented  Bucks  county  in  the  Provincial 
Assembly  almost  continuously  from  1684  to  1704,  and  was  a 
member  of  Provincial  Council  in  1693  and  1700.  He  was  drowned 
in  the  river  Delaware  while  proceeding  with  other  members  of 
assembly  in  a  "wherry"  to  a  session  of  assembly  in  Philadelphia 
on  March  25,  1705.  William  Penn,  in  a  letter  written  7  mo.  14. 
1705,  says:  "I  lament  the  loss  of  honest  Richard  Hough.  Such 
men  must  needs  be  wanted  where  selfishness  and  forgetfulness  of 
God's  mercies  so  much  abound." 

Joseph  Milnor,  a  neighbor  of  the  Bakers,  on  the  south,  was 
also  a  member  of  assembly  for  several  years. 

Henry  Baker  came  to  Pennsylvania  early  in  1684  from  Darby 
in  the  County  of  Lancaster,  England,  bringing  a  certificate  from 
the  Friends'  Meeting  at  Hardshaw,  dated  3  mo.  27,  1684,  which 
included  his  wife  and  family.  He  settled  at  once  at  this  point, 
taking  up  a  tract  of  three  hundred  acres,  which  was  surveyed  to 
him  2  mo.  25.  1685.  In  1696  he  purchased  of  Henry  Margarum 
the  two  hundred  and  fifty  acres  of  the  Hough  tract,  which  Mar- 
gerum  had  purchased  of  Richard  Hough  in  1688.  This  extended 
his  plantation  farther  up  the  river.  The  finally-established  line 
between  his  land  and  the  remainder  of  the  Hough  tract  was 
twenty  perches  north  of  the  original  terminus  of  the  first  road 
laid  out  by  county  authority,  August  26,  1723,  to  the  ferry,  and 
this  road  terminated  at  the  break  in  the  bank  of  the  river  just 
below  the  lower  point  of  the  island,  as  shown  by  a  draft  on  file 
in  the  office  of  clerk  of  quarter  sessions,  a  copy  of  which  I  will 
attach  to  this  paper.  Its  terminus  would  therefore  be  practically 
the  site  of  the  historic  crossing  of  Washington's  army  on  Christ- 
mas night.  The  road  was  changed  to  its  present  line  in  1769. 
This  road  of  1723  was  possibly  the  result  of  a  presentment  of 
the  "grand  inquest  of  our  Lord  the  King  for  ye  body  of  the 
County  of  Bucks"  in  1690,  which  presented  the  "necessity  of  a 
road  from  ye  King's  road  above  Samuel  Baker's  leading  to 
Southampton  road  which  leads  to  Philadelphia,  for  the  conven- 
iency  of  ye  upper  inhabitants  of  Makefield."  The  King's  road 
was  doubtless  the  River  road,  the  date  of  the  laying  out  of  which 
is  unknown  to  me. 

Along  the  original  line  between  the  Richard  Hough  and  Henry 
Baker  tracts  was  an  ancient  highway  "which  was  laid  out  at  first 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING  379 

survey  of  said  lands."  Oliver  Hough,  in  his  pamphlet  on 
"Richard  Hough,  Provincial  Councillor,"  assumes  that  this  road 
was  the  present  road  from  Taylorsville  to  the  Eagle.  The  latter 
road  did  originally  extend  to  the  river,  that  part  from  its  present 
terminus  at  the  outer  River  road  running  through  the  Lownes 
farm  having  been  vacated  several  years  ago.  But  the  line  of  the 
road,  as  now  existing,  does  not  coincide  in  its  course  with  the 
line  of  division  between  the  original  surveys,  and  it  is  doubtless 
a  later  laid-out  road. 

Henry  Baker  also  owned  considerable  other  land  in  Bucks 
county,  including  a  large  tract  at  Newtown,  and  another  in 
Wrightstown.  He  continued  to  reside  at  the  Ferry  until  1696, 
when  he  purchased  a  lot  in  Buckingham,  now  Bristol,  and  re- 
moving there  was  associated  with  Samuel  Carpenter  in  the  opera- 
tion of  the  first  mill  erected  in  Bristol.    He  died  at  Bristol  in  1701. 

Henry  Baker  was  foreman  of  the  first  grand  jury  of  Bucks 
county  in  1685.  He  was  a  member  of  Provincial  Assembly 
1685,  1687,  1688,  1689,  1690  and  1698.  He  was  justice  of  the 
courts  of  Bucks  county  from  1689  to  near  the  date  of  his  death. 
He  was  also  a  member  of  Provincial  Council  in  1689-90,  and  was 
one  of  the  commission  appointed  to  divide  Bucks  county  into 
townships  in  1692.  His  first  wife,  Margaret,  died  June  2,  1688. 
and  he  married  second  in  1692  Mary  Radclifife,  widow  of  James 
Radclifife,  one  of  the  first  settlers  in  Wrightstown.  She  survived 
him  several  years.  By  his  first  wife  he  had  nine  children,  and  by 
the  second,  one,  Margaret,  who  married  William  Atkinson.  His 
eldest  child,  Rachel,  married  first  Job  Bunting,  and  second  John 
Cowgill.  His  second  daughter,  Sarah,  married  first  Stephen  Wil- 
son, and  second  Isaac  Milnor.  Another  daughter,  Phebe,  married 
first  Edward  Radcliffe,  her  step-brother,  and  second  William 
Stockdale.  Esther,  the  youngest  daughter,  by  the  first  marriage, 
married  first  Thomas  Yardley,  second  William  Brown,  and  third 
Richard  Hough,  Jr.  His  sons  were  Samuel  and  Nathan.  The 
latter  removed  from  Bucks  county  at  an  early  date. 

Samuel  Baker  inherited  under  his  father's  will  the  lands  at  the 
Ferry,  which  by  the  original  surveys  contained  five  hundred  and 
fifty  acres  extending  back  from  the  river  at  the  Ferry  six  hun- 
dred and  eight-four  perches.  By  order  of  the  Proprietaries  the 
two  tracts  were  resurveyed  in  November  11.  1700,  by  Edward 


380  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING 

Pennington,  surveyor  general,  and  were  found  to  contain  eight 
hundred  fifty-nine  and  one-half  acres,  insteal  of  six  hundred  and 
five,  to  which  Samuel  Baker  was  entitled,  by  adding  the  six  per 
cent,  allowance  for  roads  and  highways.  This  left  a  surplvis  of 
two  hundred  fifty-four  and  one-half  acres  to  be  purchased,  and 
Samuel  Baker  as  heir  to  Henry  agreed  to  pay  for  this  surplus  at 
the  rate  of  £20  per  one  hundred  acres,  or  £51,  2s.  6d,  and  a 
patent  was  accordingly  issued  to  him  September  10,  1702.  On 
October  8,  1708,  he  sold  to  John  Baldwin  one  hundred  acres  at 
the  rear  or  back  part  of  the  tract,  and  continued  to  own  and  oc- 
cupy until  his  death  the  remainder  of  the  tract  fronting  on  the 
Delaware  about  two  hundred  and  ten  perches  and  extending 
back  from  the  river  about  one  and  one-half  miles. 

Samuel  Baker  was  born  in  West  Derbye,  Lancashire,  August 
1,  1676,  and  came  with  his  parents  to  Pennsylvania,  arriving  in 
Philadelphia  July  17,  1684.  He  married  in  July  1793,  Rachel 
Warder,  daughter  of  Willoughby  Warder,  of  Falls  township. 
He,  like  his  father,  was  prominent  in  public  afifairs.  He  was 
commissioned  a  justice  on  March  6,  1708,  and  recommissioned 
March  3.  1710.  He  was  elected  to  the  Provincial  xA.ssembly  in 
1710  and  in  1711.  He  or  his  son,  Samuel,  Jr.,  was  commissioner 
of  Bucks  county  in  1722,  and  coroner  in  1725. 

Samuel  Baker  by  deed  dated  May  2,  1717,  conveyed  all  his 
lands  in  Makefield  to  Charles  Norris,  of  Philadelphia — the  eight 
hundred  forty-nine  and  one-half  acres  patented  to  Samuel  on 
November  10,  1702,  less  the  one  hundred  acres  sold  to  John 
Baldwin  in  1708,  leaving  the  tract  to  extend  six  hundred  and 
sixty-four  perches  back  from  the  river  on  the  southern  line  and 
five  hundred  and  seventy  perches  on  the  northern  line,  and  two 
hundred  and  seventy  perches  wide ;  also  three  tracts  in  the 
Manor  of  Highlands,  two  of  sixteen  acres  and  eighty  perches, 
and  sixteen  acres  and  forty  perches,  respectively,  and  a  meadow 
tract  of  one  hundred  and  one  acres  and  forty-eight  perches. 
Charles  Norris  conveyed  six  hundred  acres  of  this  tract  to 
Samuel  Baker,  Jr. 

Samuel  and  Rachel  (W^arder)  Baker  had  eleven  children :  Ann 
Mary,  who  married  Charles  Biles ;  Samuel,  who  succeeded  to  the 
ownership  of  the  Ferry ;  Henry,  who  lived  and  died  near  the 
Ferry;    Nathan,    who    died    young;    Sarah,  who  married  Abel 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING  381 

Janney,  and  removed  to  Virginia;  John,  who  died  in  Philadelphia 
in  1759;  Joseph,  a  hatter,  who  died  in  Philadelphia  in  1790; 
Benjamin,  who  died  young;  Lydia,  who  married  John  Burroughs; 
and  Margaret,  who  married  a  Tomlinson ;  and  another  Nathan 
who  removed  to  Maryland. 

Samuel  Baker,  Jr.,  son  of  Samuel  and  Rachel,  born  at  Baker's 
Ferry  April  28,  1706,  died  there  in  1769.  He  acquired  the  greater 
part  of  his  father's  lands,  including  the  ferry  and  six  hundred 
acres.  Under  the  terms  of  his  will,  dated  June  25,  1758,  pro- 
bated September  23,  1760,  his  lands  were  directed  to  be  sold  by 
his  executors,  who  were  his  wife,  Elizabeth,  and  John  Burroughs. 
These  executors,  by  deed  dated  December  5,  1774  (not  recorded 
but  recited  in  the  latter  deeds),  conveyed  the  site  of  the  ferry  and 
five  hundred  and  sixty  three  acres  to  Samuel  McConkey.  The 
sale,  however,  must  have  been  consummated  and  possession  given 
several  years  prior  to  this  date,  as  on  the  opening  of  the  road 
from  the  Ferry  to  Newtown  in  1769,  the  Ferry  and  the  land 
through  which  it  extended  is  referred  to  as  McConkey's,  late 
Baker's  Ferry.  Samuel  McConkey  sold  the  five  hundred  and 
ninety-three-acre  tract,  containing  by  resurvey  over  six  hundred 
and  five  acres,  in  three  tracts.  By  deed  dated  March  22,  1777, 
he  conveyed  the  Ferry  site  and  three  hundred  and  four  acres  and 
also  another  tract  of  twenty-five  acres  to  Benjamin  Taylor,  of 
Hunterdon  county.  N.  J.  By  deed  dated  April  2,  1777.  he  con- 
veyed to  his  son  John  McConkey  one  hundred  and  forty-six 
acres  lying  between  the  two  tracts  conveyed  to  Taylor,  and  on 
December  4,  1778,  he  conveyed  the  balance  of  the  tract,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  acres,  to  his  son.  Captain  William  McConkey. 
John  McConkey,  on  April  22,  1777,  conveyed  forty-six  acres  of 
his  purchase  to  Benjamin  Taylor,  and  Benjamin  Taylor  in  1784 
conveyed  to  Henry  Baker,  in  trust  for  Joseph  Baker,  one  hun- 
dred and  three  acres  fronting  on  the  river  below  the  Ferry,  part 
of  the  McConkey  tract.  This  tract  remained  in  the  tenure  of  the 
Baker  family  until  1829,  when  it  was  conveyed  by  Mary  B. 
Baker  to  Mahlon  K.  Taylor.  Henry  Baker,  brother  of  Samuel, 
Jr.,  in  1763,  purchased  one  hundred  and  thirteen  acres  in  the 
Manor  of  Highland,  on  which  he  lived  and  died,  and  its  owner- 
ship passed  to  Noah  Slack  by  deed  from  his  executors  in  1786. 

So  much  for  the  history  of  the  site.     We  will  now  turn  to  the 


382  EARLY   HISTORY  OF   WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING 

occupation  of  Makefield  by  Washington  and  his  army  in  Decem- 
ber, 1776. 

LOCATION   AND    MOVEMENTS   OF   WASHINGTON'S   ARMY   IN    BUCKS 
COUNTY  PRIOR  TO  THE  BATTLE  OF  TRENTON. 

General  Washington  after  the  crossing  of  the  Delaware  at 
Trenton  to  Bucks  county,  on  December  8,  1776,  established  his 
residence  and  headquarters  at  "Summerseat"  in  Morrisville  and 
remained  there  until  December  14.  During  this  time  he  wrote 
many  letters  dated  at  "Head-Quarters  Trenton  Falls."  The  out- 
look was  gloomy  indeed.  In  one  of  his  letters  he  writes:  "No 
man  I  believe  ever  had  greater  choice  of  difftculties  and  less 
means  to  extricate  himself  from  them." 

While  he  had  been  successful  in  collecting  all  the  boats  along 
the  river  from  Bordentown  to  Tinicum  and  secreting  and  guard- 
ing them  on  the  west  side  of  the  Delaware,  there  was  always 
danger  that  the  river  would  freeze  over  sufficiently  for  Howe's 
army  to  cross,  and  he  was  also  apprehensive  that  they  had  car- 
ried a  number  of  "flat  bottomed  boats"  or  "pontoons"  with  them 
from  New  Brunswick.  In  his  letter  to  Congress,  December  13. 
the  last  before  his  removal  to  the  Kieth  house,  he  writes : 

"The  apparent  designs  of  the  enemy  to  avoid  the  ferry  and  land  their 
troops  above  and  below  us  have  induced  me  to  remove  from  this  place 
the  greater  part  of  the  troops  and  throw  them  into  different  dispositions 
on  the  river,  whereby  I  hope  not  only  to  be  able  to  impede  their  passage 
but  also  avoid  the  danger  of  being  enclosed  in  this  angle  of  the  river 
*  *  *  I  cannot  divest  myself  of  the  opinion  that  their  principal  de- 
sign is  to  ford  the  river  somewhere  above  Trenton  to  which  design  I 
have  had  particular  respect  in  the  new  arrangement  wherein  I  am  so 
far  happy  as  to  have  the  concurrence  of  the  General  Officers  at  this 
place.  Four  Brigades  of  the  Army  under  Generals  Lord  Sterling, 
Mercer,   Stephen  and  DeFermoy^  extend  from  Yardley  up  to  Coryell's 

1  Chevalier  Matthias  Alexis  LeRoche  De  Fermoy,  formerly  a  colonel  in  the 
French  service,  on  November  2,  1776,  offered  his  services  to  Congress  and  ap- 
plied for  a  commission  in  the  Continental  service.  On  November  5,  he  was 
appointed  by  Congress  a  Brigadier  General.  On  November  9  he  was  granted 
two  months  advanced  pay  and  ordered  to  repair  to  the  Northern  Army  at 
Ticonderoga  and  put  himself  under  the  command  of  General   Schuyler. 

A  letter  of  General  Schuyler  to  General  Gates  on  November  27  shows  that 
he  had  not  yet  arrived,  and  on  November  25,  he  was  ordered  to  report  at 
once  to  Washington,  instead  of  going  to  the  northward.  He  evidently  joined 
Washington  during  the  retreat  across  New  Jersey,  as  in  the  General's  letter 
to  the  Board  of  War,  dated  "Head-Quarters,  Trenton,  December,  1776,"  he 
-says,  "Yours  of  the  26th  last  month  was  delivered  to  me  by  the  Brigadier 
LeRoche  De  Formoy,  who  is  now  here,  but  unable  to  render  me  that  service 
which  I  daresay  from  his  character,  he  would  was  he  better  acquainted  with 
our  language."  However,  at  about  that  date  he  was  placed  in  command  of 
the  division  comprising  the  regiments  of  Colonel  Hand  and  Colonel  Hassegger 
with  which  he  was  stationed  at  Coryell's  Ferry  from  December  8  to  De- 
cember 25. 


EARLY   HISTORY   OF   WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING  383 

Ferry  posted  in  such  manner  as  to  guard  every  suspicious  part  of  the 
river  and  to  afford  assistance  to  each  other  in  case  of  attack.  General 
Ewing  with  the  Flying  Camp  of  Pennsylvania  and  a  few  Jersey  troops 
under  General  Dickinson  are  posted  from  Yardley's  Ferry  down  to  the 
ferry  opposite  Bordentown.  General  Cadwallader  with  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Militia  occupies  the  ground  above  and  below  Neshaminy  river  as 
far  down  as  Dunk's  Ferry  at  which  Colonel  Nixon  is  placed  with  the 
thiid   battalion   of   Philadelphia     *     *     * 

I  shall  remove  further  up  the  river  to  be  near  the  main  body  of  my 
small  army,  with  which  every  possible  opposition  shall  be  given  to  any 
further  approach  of  the  enemy  towards  Philadelphia." 

The  letter  concluded  with  an  earnest  appeal  for  the  promotion 
of  the  recruiting  service  and  to  encourage  the  Militia  to  come  in. 

Of  the  militia,  however,  the  general  had  no  very  high  opinion 
at  this  time.     In  another  letter  to  Congress  he  writes : 

"Camp  above  Trenton  Falls.  Can  anything  (the  exigency  of  the 
case  indeed  may  justify  it)  be  more  destructive  to  the  recruiting  service 
than  giving  ten  dollars  bounty  for  six  weeks  service  of  the  Militia,  who 
come  in,  you  cannot  tell  how,  and  act,  you  cannot  tell  where,  consume 
your  provisions,  exhaust  your  stores,  and  leave  you  at  last  at  a  critical 
moment." 

He  was  of  course  much  tried  by  so  many  whose  term  of  en- 
listment had  just  expired,  leaving  his  service  at  this  critical  mo- 
ment of  adversity. 

Of  the  "four  brigades"  above  referred  to  by  Washington,  in  the 
letter  above  quoted,  General  Lord  Sterling  was  at  Beaumont's 
Ferry,  between  Brownburg  and  New  Hope,  with  headquarters  in 
the  house  of  Robert  Thompson  at  Avhat  is  known  as  Neeley's 
Mill.  His  command  consisted  of  the  four  regiments  of  Colonel 
Reed,  Colonel  Haslet,  Colonel  \A'eeden  and  Major  Enion  Wil- 
liams, of  Bristol,  an  aggregate  of  1623  men.  On  December  12, 
1776,  Lord  Sterling  writes  General  Washington  from  "Blue 
Mounts"  giving  him  intelligence  in  reference  to  the  movements 
of  the  enemy  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  "gathered  from  spies 
lately  arrived  from  their  encampmeiit,"  stating  that  Cornwallis 
with  his  command  was  in  and  about  "Penny  Town"  and  General 
Howe  in  Trenton  with  some  British  and  Hessian  troops.  He 
reports  having  "sent  one  piece  of  cannon  to  Colonel  Weedon" 
(who  does  not  at  that  time  appear  to  be  stationed  at  Beaumonts) 
"and  as  to  the  three  regiments  here  now,  (they)  lie  compact  and 
well  covered  with  boards,  and  nearly  centrical  to  Yardlev's  and 


384  EARLY   HISTORY   OF   WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING 

Corriel's  ferries.  I  believe  it  best  to  let  them  remain  in  their  pres- 
ent situation  till  some  movement  of  the  enemy  makes  it  neces- 
sary to  alter  it." 

He  states  that  he  will  "send  Captain  Taylor  over  this  evening 
to  try  his  hand  among  the  enemy  encamped  about  Penny  Town," 
and  concludes  with  this  significant  advice : 

"If  our  troops  were  not  so  much  worn  out  I  would  propose  to  your 
Excellency  that  about  twelve  hundred  good  men  should  cross  over  at 
Tinicum  and  come  down  upon  them  suddenly  from  the  north.  If 
General  Lee  is  in  their  rear  this  would  greatly  cooperate  with  him  and 
tend  to  disconcert  their  measures  much.  I  would  willingly  try  the  ex- 
periment," and  adds  as  a  postscript,  "I  cannot  find  that  any  persons 
who  have  been  among  them  know  anything  of  their  pontoons  or  that 
they  are  building  any  boats." 

Gen.  Lee,  with  characteristic  obstinacy  was  loitering  in  New 
Jersey,  though  Washington  in  his  letters  had  repeatedly  urged 
him  to  proceed  at  once  to  the  Delaware  and  cross  at  Tinicum 
where  he  had  provided  boats  for  his  crossing.  He  even  sent 
Lord  Sterling  to  Easton  to  look  after  his  safe  crossing,  as  shown 
by  a  letter  written  by  Sterling  from  that  point.  He  was  finally 
captured  by  a  small  British  force  under  Colonel  Harcourt  at 
Baskenridge  on  December  13,  while  sleeping  at  a  tavern  three 
miles  outside  of  his  lines.  His  command  under  General  John 
Sullivan  then  immediately  obeyed  Washington's  order,  marched 
to  the  Delaware  at  Tinicum  and  joined  the  other  forces  in  Make- 
field  on  December  20,  in  time  to  take  part  in  the  battle. 

DeFermoy  was  at  Coryell's  Ferry  with  his  two  regiments  and 
General  Greene  who  was  Major  General  seems  to  have  had  no 
special  command  but  was  Washington's  chief  adviser  and  sec- 
ond in  command,  spent  some  time  at  Coryell's  Feny.  His  letters 
are  all  dated  from  there,  from  December  15  to  24. 

"A  return  of  the  forces  in  the  service  of  the  States  of  America 
encamped  and  in  quarters  on  the  banks  of  the.  Delaware  in  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania  under  the  command  of  his  excellency 
George  Washington,  Esq.  Commander  in  Chief  of  all  the  forces 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  December  22,  1776"  made  to 
the  Board  of  War,  at  that  date  aggregates  10,106  men. 

This  list  included  Sullivan's  command  under  Colonels  Hitch- 
cock, Glover  and  McDougalls.  but  did  not  include  such  remnants 


EARLY   HISTORY  OF  WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING  385 

of  Gen.  Gates'  army  as  was  able  to  join  Washington  at  the  last 
moment.     Nor  did  it  include  the  militia  and  volunteers. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  camp  at  Beaumonts 
included  more  than  four  regiments  under  the  immediate  com- 
mand of  Lord  Stirling.  It  was  located  in  what  is  still  known  as 
"Camp  Woods"  lying  between  the  eastern  base  of  Bowman's 
Hill  and  the  Delaware  river  and  was  the  chief  camp  of  the  forces 
who  participated  in  the  Battle  of  Trenton.  It  was  from  there 
that  Washington  wrote  a  number  of  his  official  letters  dated  at 
"Camp  above  the  Falls"  between  December  14  and  24.  Here  Tom 
Paine  is  said  to  have  written  his  immortal  "American  Crisis"  be- 
ginning with  the  words  "These  are  the  times  that  try  mens 
souls"  and  it  was  read  to  the  soldiers  there.  Near  there  are  the 
only  marked  graves  of  patriot  soldiers  who  died  during  the  oc- 
cupation of  Makefield.  On  December  17  Congress  directed  Gen- 
eral Washington  to  immediately  order  that  the  militia  of  Bucks 
and  Northampton  counties  join  him  and  to  disarm  all  who  refuse, 
and  treat  as  enemies  any  one  who  attempts  to  oppose  the  execu- 
tion of  this  order.  As  a  result  of  this  order  General  Washing- 
ton sent  out  the  following  order  to  Colonels  Joseph  Kirkbride, 
Joseph  Hart,  Andrew  Kachlein  and  Joseph  Savitz,  commanding 
the  Bucks  county  militia : 

"Sir:  The  honourable  the  Council  of  Safety  of  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania having  by  a  resolve  passed  the  17th  day  of  this  instant,  De- 
cember, authorized  me  to  call  forth  the  Militia  of  the  County  of  Bucks 
to  the  assistance  of  the  Continental  Army  under  my  command,  I  here- 
by require  you  immediately  to  issue  orders  to  the  Captains  of  your 
Regiment,  to  summon  the  officers  and  privates  for  their  companies  to 
meet  on  the  28th  day  of  this  instant,  at  the  usual  place,  for  their  join- 
ing in  battalion,  vt'ith  their  arms  and  accoutrements  in  good  order;  and 
when  so  met,  march  immediately  to  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  and  there 
put  yourself  under  the  command  of  Major  General  Putnam;  and  you 
are  further  required  to  make  me  an  exact  return  of  the  name  and 
places  of  abode  of  such  officers  and  privates  as  refuse  to  appear,  with 
their  arms  and  accoutrements,  at  the  time  and  place  appointed,  that 
they  may  be  dealt  with  as  the  resolve  above  referred  to  directs. 

Given  under  my  hand,  at  Head-Quarters,  this  19th  day  of  Decem- 
ber,   1776. 

GEO.  WASHINGTON." 

There  is  no  certainty  as  to  how  many  local  companies  joined 
\\'ashington  as  a  result  of  the  order  prior  to  the  battle,  but  we 
know  that  several  local  companies  did  participate  in  the  battle. 


386  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING 

There  seem  to  be  some  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the  messen- 
ger who  dehvered  the  note  of  warning  to  Colonel  Rahl,  the  Hes- 
sian commander  at  Trenton,  on  Christmas  night,  telling  him  that 
Washington  was  on  the  way  to  attack  him.  This  messenger 
came  to  the  house  of  Abraham  Hunt  where  Colonel  Rahl  was 
being  entertained  and  asked  for  the  colonel.  The  negro  attend- 
ant being  unwilling  to  disturb  the  Colonel  refused  to  admit  him, 
whereupon  the  messenger  hurriedly  wrote  a  brief  note  with  a  lead 
pencil,  which  he  asked  the  attendant  to  deliver  to  Colonel  Rahl 
personally.  This  note  was  delivered  but  the  Colonel  being  in  no 
condition  to  trouble  himself  with  notes,  thrust  the  note  in  his 
pocket,  where  it  was  found  after  his  death. 

General  W.  S.  Stryker,  in  his  Battles  of  Trenton  and  Princeton, 
page  125,  says  that  the  messenger  was  "a  Tory  farmer  from  Bucks 
county,  Pennsylvania  (whose  name  the  German  records  give  as 
Wall,  possibly  the  same  royalist  called  Mahl  who  had  visited  Col. 
Rahl  a  few  days  before."  General  Stryker  does  not  make  it  very 
clear  as  to  what  German  records  he  refers  and  it  is  highly  im- 
probable that  the  note  should  have  ever  reached  Germany  or 
German  records,  and  if  the  general  really  saw  it  he  would  know 
whether  it  was  signed  Wall  or  Mahl.  Hon.  Garret  B.  Wall,  who 
was  elected  governor  of  New  Jersey  in  1829,  is  the  author  of 
the  statement  that  the  messenger  was  Moses  Doan,  the  notorious 
leader  of  the  Doan  outlaws  of  Bucks  county,  and  this  story  has 
been  repeated  by  several  historians  who  give  the  exact  text  of  the 
note  as  follows :  "Washington  is  coming  on  you  down  the  river. 
He  will  be  here  afore  long.  Doan."  It  seems  to  be  an  estab- 
lished fact  that  Moses  Doan  was  on  Long  Island  prior  to  the  Bat- 
tle of  Long  Island,  and  gave  information  to  General  Howe  as  to 
the  location  of  Washington's  army.  Several  historians  have  also 
stated  that  Moses  and  Abraham  Doan  were  in  the  British  camp 
at  Trenton  some  time  prior  to  the  battle,  and  since  it  is  admitted 
that  Moses  Doan  acted  as  a  messenger  and  spy  in  the  service  of 
the  British  officers  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  to  doubt  the  truth 
of  the  story  so  often  reiterated  that  he  was  the  messenger  to 
Col.  Rahl  on  Christmas  night. 

However,  many  of  the  stories  told  in  reference  to  the  exploits 
of  the  Doans  are  sensational  and  fictitious,  including  a  large  part 
of  the  several  pamphlets  of  William  P.  Seymour  in  1853,  Henry 


EARLY   HISTORY  OF   WASHINGTON'S   CROSSING  387 

Marrs  in  1860  and  John  P.  Rogers  about  1870,  and  in  spite  of  the 
apparent  authenticity  of  the  note  as  above  quoted,  there  will  prob- 
ably always  remain  some  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the  mes- 
senger. 

Did  time  permit,  I  would  be  glad  to  give  you  some  account  of 
the  other  movements  of  General  Washington  and  his  army  in  and 
through  Bucks  county  including  the  encampment  on  the  banks 
of  the  Neshaminy  near  Hartsville,  August  10  to  23,  1777,  when 
Howe  was  making  his  second  and  more  successful  attempt  to 
seize  and  occupy  Philadelphia.  There  it  was  that  the  Marquis  de 
LaFayette  first  joined  Washington's  army,  and  there  the  stars  and 
stripes  were  first  unfurled  before  the  American  army.  However, 
William  J.  Buck,  the  eminent  historian  of  our  county  has  pub- 
lished in  pamphlet  form  an  excellent  history  of  the  Camp  at 
Neshatnlny  and  another  paper  on  the  same  subject  was  read  be- 
fore a  meeting  of  the  Pennsylvania  Society,  Sons  of  the  Revolu- 
tion at  their  meeting  held  at  Washington's  headquarters  there, 
June  20,  1903,  by  Charles  Henry  Jones,  and  was  printed  in  their 
proceedings,  and  in  separate  pamphlet  form.  Either  of  these 
pamphlets  can  be  seen  in  any  good  historical  library,  including 
that  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society. 

In  concluding,  I  want  to  urge  upon  the  \\'ashington  Crossing 
Park  Commission  the  importance  of  their  securing  permanent 
ownership  of  the  site  of  the  "encampment  at  Beaumont's"  in- 
cluding the  camp-woods  where  Lord  Sterling  and  other  forces  of 
Washington's  army  were  encamped  for  two  weeks  prior  to  the 
Battle  of  Trenton,  and  from  where  they  marched  on  Christmas 
Day  to  this  point  to  cross  the  Delaware  and  attack  the  Hessians. 
This  ownership  should  include  the  site  of  the  graves  of  the  pa- 
triot soldiers  on  the  bank  of  the  Delaware  and  the  old  Thompson 
house  fast  falling  into  decay,  where  Lord  Stirling  had  his  head- 
quarters;  where  Tom  Paine  wrote  his  immortal  American  Crisis; 
where  \\'ashington  penned  some  of  the  most  important  letters  of 
that  trying  time  in  the  struggle  for  American  independence. 

Outside  of  their  historical  association  the  house  and  adjoin- 
ing barns  are  types  of  Colonial  architecture  now  rapidly  disap- 
pearing and  should  be  preserved.  The  original  mill  where  the 
food  was  ground  for  the  use  of  the  army  had  doubtless  passed 
away  but  the  old  mill  on  the  same  site  represents  the  original  and 
should  be  preserved. 


A  Lost  Stoveplate  Inscription. 

BY  DR.    HENRY  C.    MERCER,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting-,   January    21,    1922.) 

SINCE  The  Bible  in  Iron  was  written  in  1914,  several  new 
facts  have  come  to  light,  concerning  the  history  of  the  ancient 
cast  iron  decorated  stoves  of  the  Pennsylvania-Germans, 
among  others  the  following : 

The  two  stoveplates  here  shown  are  from  our  museum,  and 
the  little  one  (Figure  1),  with  the  upper  left  hand  corner  broken 
ofif,  No.  96,  in  The  Bible  in  Iron,  will  always  have  a  peculiar  in- 
terest for  me,  because  it  was  the  first  stoveplate  that  our  society 
ever  possessed,  if  not  the  first  that  I  ever  saw.  Patrick  Trainor 
gave  it  to  General  Davis,  probably  before  1897,  and  for  a  long 
time  it  stood  in  our  old  congested  museum,  in  the  Farm  Bureau 
Room  at  the  courthouse  in  Doylestown,  at  which  time  I  knew  no 
more  about  it  than  did  General  Davis. 

With  a  good  deal  of  difficulty,  I  made  out  that  the  inscription, 
in  German,  was  quoted  from  Romans  XII-21,  in  Luther's  Bible, 
translated  "Be  not  overcome  of  Evil,"  lacking  the  keyword  of 
the  sentence,  "overcome ;"  also  that  the  initials  S.  F.  stood  for  the 
old  Berks  county  ironmaster,  Samuel  Flower.  The  date  1756 
was  plain,  but  the  feature  of  intereset  was  the  design  that 
showed  me  for  the  first  time  the  emblematic  holy  flower  garden, 
seen  under  the  arches  of  a  cloister,  so  common  on  stove- 
plates.  Above  all,  the  mysterious  circle  of  rays  of  light,  sup- 
ported on  legs  forming  the  heads  and  the  fore  feet  of  sheep, 
and  enclosing  symbolic  flowers,  which  puzzled  the  late  Dr. 
Sachse,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  B.  Stout,  many  Lutheran  ministers,  several 
foreign  antiquaries.  Dr.  Beck,  author  of  the  History  of  Iron,  and 
the  late  noted  mediaeval  student,  Dr.  Haefner  Von  Alteneck  of 
Munich,  and  which  from  that  time  to  this,  has  remained  an  un- 
solved enigma.  But  as  this  singular  pattern  does  not  concern  my 
story,  and  as  it  was  by  no  means  confined  to  this  plate,  but  ap- 
peared on  dozens  of  others,  I  pass  it  by. 

Besides,  by  the  time  I  had  described  and  illustrated  this  S.  F. 
plate  in  The  Bible  in  Iron,  it  had  become  very  common.     We 


Figui-L'   1 
THE  S.  F.   STOVEPLATE  OF  1756. 

BE  NOT  OVERCOME  OF  EVIL. 
(Bible  in  Iron,  No.   96.) 


^S^n^lih 


Figure   12 

THIS  IS  THE  YEAR  IN  WHICH  RAGES 
(Bible    in    Iron,    No.    102.) 


A   LOST  STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTION  389 

found  another  pair  of  S.  F.  plates,  also  dated  1756,  inscribed 
"Ji-idge  not  that  ye  be  not  judged,"  from  Matthew  VII-1,  Luther's 
Bible  (Bible  in  Iron,  Nos.  98  and  99),  so  much  like  this,  as  to  be 
easily  confused  with  it.  Bucks  county  seemed  full  of  these  little 
patterns,  so  much  so,  that  it  appeared  either  that  Samuel  Flower 
must  have  sent  many  wagon  loads  into  this  region  to  vmdersell 
Durham  Furnace,  or  that  if ,  as  Mr.  Ely  has  recently  learned,  Flow- 
er had  become  part  owner  of  Durham  at  that  time,  he  might 
have  cast  these  stoves,  not  at  Reading,  but  at  Durham,  and  sold 
them  here  in  its  neighborhood.  At  last  we  found  several  end 
plates  which  completed  the  inscription,  so  that  we  were  able  to 
set  up  and  exhibit  three  entire  stoves  of  this  design.  In  fact,  the 
pattern  had  appeared  so  frequently,  that  by  the  time  the  eighteen 
duplicates  of  it,  now  in  our  museum,  had  come  into  our  posses- 
sion, one  by  one,  I  had  grown  tired  of  it. 

The  large  plate  Figure  2,  (No.  102  in  Bible  in  Iron),  called 
"The  Raging  Year,"  presents  a  very  different  case.  It  first  came 
to  my  notice  in  1897,  when  upon  the  information  of  Mr.  I.  J. 
Stover,  of  New  Britain,  I  found  it  lying  as  a  gutter  bridge  or 
path-pavement  close  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Anna  Hofifman  near 
New  Britain.  It  is  larger  than  Figure  1,  but  shows  the  same 
general  pattern,  the  same  cloistered  flower  garden,  the  same 
mysterious  halo  or  aureole  with  sheeps'  legs  above  noticed,  and 
the  same  date,  1756,  but  the  great  interest  of  this  specimen  is, 
and  has  long  been,  its  inscription,  in  German,  translated — "This 
is  the  year  in  which  rages — "  \A^hat  did  it  mean?  What  rages? 
A  storm,  a  pestilence,  or  Indians,  in  1756?  By  the  help  of 
Cruden's  Concordance,  I  searched  the  Bible,  wrote  many  letters, 
and  consulted  many  authorities,  but  in  vain.  The  missing  end 
plate,  if  we  could  have  found  it,  would  have  finished  the  inscrip- 
tion, but  no  such  plate  appeared.  There  were  other  plates  walled 
up  in  the  kitchen  of  the  Hofifman  house,  but  they  were  tops  and 
bottoms,  and  therefore  blanks.  I  illustrated  the  unique  relic 
soon  after,  in  my  first  small  pamphlet  on  the  subject, — "Deco- 
rated Stove  Plates  of  the  Pennsylvania  Germans,"  written  in 
1897. 

Then  we  found  a  duplicate  side  plate  in  the  smoking  room  of 
Mr.  Luckenbach,  at  Bethlehem,  but  still  no  end  plate.  By  the 
time  I  wrote   TJw  Bible  in  Iron,   1914,   I  believed  it  to  be  one 


390 


A   LOST   STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTION 


of  the  rarest  plates  in  the  whole  collection,  and  refrained  from 
discussing  the  meaning  of  its  mysterious  inscription,  as  to  which 
I  was  as  much  in  the  dark  as  ever.  Why  was  this  stove  so  very 
rare,  I  wondered.  Were  the  wooden  moulds  broken  or  lost  at 
the  start,  at  the  ancient  furnace  (Durham  perhaps),  that  cast  it? 
or  was  there  anything  about  the  inscription  that  was  false  or 
that  would  not  bear  repeating?  Did  the  furnace  only  make  it 
during  one  year  1756,  that  it  commemorated?  I  left  the  solu- 
tion of  these  questions  to  chance,  and  at  last  ceased  to  concern 
myself  about  them. 

Eighteen  years  passed.  Then  another  duplicate  side  plate  ap- 
peared under  the  following  interesting  circumstances. 

Mr.  A.  H.  Rice,  dealer  in  antiquities,  at  Bethlehem,  who  had  at 
that  time  become  an  active  collector  of  stoveplates,  suddenly 
informed  me  that  he  had  found  a  very  old  deserted  and  ruinous 
house  in  upper  Bucks  county,  between  Pleasant  Valley  and  Rich- 
landtown,  from  which  one  of  the  ancient  jamb  or  five  plate  stoves 
had  been  recently  removed,  that  the  hole  in  the  wall  which  had 
enclosed  the  stove  still  stood  in  its  original  condition,  and  that 
there  were  several  persons  still  living  in  the  neighborhood,  Avho 
had  seen  the  stove  in  use.     I  immediately,  by  telephone,  arranged 


Figure   6 

STOVE  IN  ITS  ORIGINAL  POSITION. 
A.   The  Lost  End  Plate.      B.  The   Side  Plate.      C.   The   Stove   Leg.      D.   The 
Postament.     E.    The  Stove-hole  in  the  Wall.     F.   The  Flue.      G.   The  Kitchen 
Fireplace.     H.  The  Chimney.     I.  The  Lintel  Beam. 


Figure   3 
FIREPLACE  OF  THE  HORNE  HOUSE,   SHOWING  STOVE-HOLE. 

The  jamb  stove-hole  is  shown  in  its  original  doorless  condition  in  the 
lower  right  corner  at  A.  The  stove-flue  opening,  in  very  dark  shadow 
under  B.      (Made  from  a  very  poor  photograph.) 


A  LOST   STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTION  391 

an  expedition,  and  a  few  days  later,  with  Mr.  W.  E.  Montague, 
Mr.  W.  B.  Montague,  Mr.  A.  H.  Rice,  as  guide,  and  Mr.  F. 
K.  Swain,  with  a  camera,  visited  the  place  in  motor  cars.  The 
house  turned  out  to  he  the  Home  (previously  Reasor  or  Reeser) 
house,  in  which  the  late  noted  Pennsylvania-German  scholar,  Dr. 
A.  R.  Home,  had  been  born,  described  in  General  Davis's  History 
as  one  of  the  oldest  dwellings  in  northern  Bucks  county,  and  which 
as  Mr.  \y.  S.  Ely  has  recently  proved,  may  have  been  built  in 
1746.1 

The  ancient  stone  smoke-stack,  6  feet  wide  by  10  feet  long  at 
the  base,  laid  in  clay  mortar,  and  tapering  upwards  through  the 
garret  floor  and  roof  of  the  building,  divided  the  ground  floor  into 
two  rooms,  the  kitchen  on  the  east,  and  the  stove-room  entered 
by  a  door  to  the  left  of  the  smoke-stack  on  the  west.  The  great 
cooking  fireplace  built  into  the  smoke-stack,  and  opening  upon 
the  kitchen,  had  an  opening  7  feet  8  inches  wide  by  5  feet  3  inches 
high.  It  was  38  inches  deep  and  had  a  wooden  oaken  champered 
lintel  22  inches  high  by  14  inches  thick,  with  a  moulding  planed 
on  its  lower  face  corner.  The  stone  wall  back  of  the  fireplace  was 
vertical  and  here  we  found  in  the  lower  right  hand  corner  the 
ancient  stove-hole,  17  inches  wide,  13  inches  high  to  the  crown 
of  arch,  and  11  inches  high  at  its  sides,  15>^  inches  above  the 
hearth,  24  inches  from  the  right  jamb  (A  Figure  3).    This  stove- 

1  W^arren  S.  Ely  has  discovered  that  Joseph  Unthank  purchased  the  prop- 
erty by  patent  from  John  Penn,  Thomas  Penn  and  Richard  Penn,  Patent 
Book  A,  Vol.  II,  page  334,  February  14,  1743.  Also  that  Unthank  held  a 
Quaker  Meeting  in  a  house  then  standing  upon  this  land  according  to- 
minutes  of  Richland  Monthly  Meeting  of  Friends,  "On  2nd  month  1743  the- 
Friends  in  Springfield  were  granted  to  hold  meeting  at  the  houses  of  Joseph 
Unthank  and  John  Dennis  for  a  period  of  six  months.  This  was  annually 
renewed  until  1755  when  Joseph  Unthank,  being  about  to  remove  to  North 
Carolina,  the  meeting,  previously  held  at  his  house,  was  ordered  to  be  held', 
at  Thomas  Adamson's  on  the  adjoining  farm."'  Finally  that  according  to 
Deed  Book  165,  p.  583,  Unthank  sold  the  property  to  Abraham  Reiser,  a. 
German   IMennonite,    on   May    1,    1755. 

From  the  above  it  might  appear  that  the  house  now  (1922)  standing  on: 
the  property  was  the  house  in  which  the  Quaker  Meeting  was  held  in  1743.. 
On  the  other  hand  the  house,  now  standing,  is  built  in  the  old  German  style, 
with  the  chimney  not  set  against  one  of  the  gables  in  the  English  style,  but 
in  the  middle  of  the  structure,  and  it  seems  very  improbable  that  Unthank, 
who  could  have  found  no  house  standing  on  the  premises  when  he  bought 
the  land  in  1734,  and  who  was  an  English  Quaker,  would  have  built  a  house 
in  this  German  manner.  Second,  the  chimney  now  standing  was  constructed 
in  the  first  place  for  a  German  jamb  stove,  a  kind  of  warming  apparatus 
that  was  probably  unfamiliar  to  Unthank.  Third,  the  jamb  stove  as  original- 
ly built  into  this  chimney  was  dated  1756,  and  lastly  because  Reiser,  who 
was  a  German  Mennonite,  and  familiar  with  such  stoves,  bought  the  property 
in  1755,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  would  have  discarded  any  possible  earlier 
stove  then  standing  against  the  fireplace.  Therefore  we  may  reasonably 
suppose  that  the  "Raging  Year  Stove,''  traced  to  this  house,  was  the  first 
stove  ever  used  in  it,  and  that  Reiser  built  the  house,  now  standing,  either 
in  1756,  or  the  following  year.  See  also  Old  Houses  in  Bucks  County  by 
H.   C.   Mercer,   Manuscript  Vol.    T,   1313.    1    to   11. 


392  A   LOST   STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTION 

hole  penetrated  the  wall  of  the  smoke-stack  back  of  the  fire,  and 
opened  into  the  room  beyond,  called  the  stove-room.  (See  E  Fig- 
ure 6.)  Eighteen  inches  over  the  center  of  this  stove-hole  in  the 
fireplace,  was  a  small  hole  5  inches  high  by  4  inches  wide,  which 
as  we  found,  passed  entirely  through  the  wall  above  the  stove- 
hole,,  dipping  slightly  downward,  so  as  to  enter  the  wall  in  the 
stove  room,  about  11  inches  above  the  stove-hole,  which  smaller 
hole  I  took  to  be  a  smoke  passage  made  to  increase  the  draught 
of  the  stove.  At  this  point,  namely  on  the  stove-room  side  of 
the  wall,  what  we  saw  was  still  more  interesting.  This  was  a 
rim  or  projection,  called  the  'Testament,"  in  the  German  stove 
books,  built  of  stones  laid  in  clay,  3  feet  7  inches  wide,  by  4  feet 
4  inches  high,  and  extending  outward  from  the  wall  11>4  inches 
(Figure  4  and  DD  Figure  6.)  This  projection  or  abutment  en- 
circled a  square  hole  for  the  insertion  of  a  stove — 21^  inches 
wide  by  28>^  inches  high,  and  10  inches  above  the  floor,  which 
hole  we  found  walled  up  as  if  after  the  removal  of  the  stove 
that  had  fit  it.  We  pulled  out  this  temporary  wall,  so  as  to 
reveal  ,the  inside  of  the  postament  and  the  end  of  the  stove- 
hole  proper,  which  latter  was  here  of  the  same  size  as  it  was 
in  the  fireplace  (E  Figure  6),  arched  on  the  top,  and  too 
small  to  fit  any  stove,  but  the  bottom  of  which  coincided  with 
the  bottom  of  the  postament  hole.  (Figure  5.)  The  stove  there- 
fore under  discussion,  had  not  been  thrust  or  walled  into  this 
original  hole  in  the  wall,  but  had  been  held  in  place  entirely  by 
the  postament,  which  we  found  was  not  a  part  of  the  original  wall, 
but  had  been  built  against  it,  and  was  now  sagging  away  from  it, 
leaving  a  wide  crack,  and  which,  therefore,  might  have  been 
built  of  any  size  to  fit  any  stove.  After  observing  these  facts  we 
found  to  our  great  surprise,  that  this  heavy  postament  was  built 
directly  upon  the  now  rotting  wooden  floor  of  the  room,  without 
any  continuous  pier  to  support  it  in  the  cellar,  and  we  finally 
convinced  ourselves  that  this  particular  floor  was  not  in  its 
original  condition,  but  had  been  raised  after  the  building  was 
constructed,  and  as  we  concluded,  about  the  year  1800,  when  a 
new  wang  had  been  added  to  the  house.  This  proved  that  the 
postament,  as  we  saw  it,  had  replaced  a  still  older  one,  and  that 
in  raising  the  floor  and  rebuilding  this  postament,  the  old  stove 
must  have  been  taken  down  and  set  up  again.     (See  Figure  6.) 


Figure  4 

THE  HORNE  HOUSE  IN  SPRINGFIELD  TOWNSHIP. 
Showing  postament  witli  hole  walled  up. 


A  LOST   STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTIOX  393 

Before  and  after  making  these  measurements,  we  found,  ques- 
tioned, or  heard  of  several  persons  in  the  neighborhood,  who  had 
seen  or  used  the  old  stove  in  place,  as  follows : 

a — Mrs.  Mary  Ann  Walp,  who  had  used  the  stove  in  1851. 

b  &  c — James  and  Henry  Home,  who,  as  boys,  lived  in  the  house. 

d — Mrs.  Rhinehardt,  sister  of  the  Home  brothers. 

e — Samuel  S.  Moyer,  who  saw  the  stove  in  place  seventy  years  be- 
fore when  coming  to  the  place  to  make  cider. 

f — Dr.  J.  J.  Ott,  of  Pleasant  Valley,  who  saw  the  stove  in  position  in 
1896,  and  had  remeinbered  it  for  twenty  years  before. 

g — Mrs.  Foulke,  of  Richlandtown,  who  had  lived  in  the  house  thirty- 
five  years  before  when  the  stove  was  standing. 

h — Thomas  H.  Wieder,  318  North  Ave.,  Warren,  Ohio,  who  saw  the 
stove  in  place  in  1868. 

It  appeared  from  the  evidence  of  these  witnesses  here  given  in 
full   in   a   foot   note,-   without   correction,   as   originally   written 

-  a.  Inf.  Mrs.  Mary  Ann  Walp,  of  Richlandtown,  seen  by  us  that  day  at  a 
quilting  party  at  her  daughters  in  Quakertown,  Pa.  Used  by  Mrs.  Walp 
64  years  ago.  Long  sticks  used  and  as  burned  out  pushed  them  in.  She  is 
sure  there  were  iron  legs,  not  sure  of  design.  Sure  they  were  not  of  pottery. 
Not  sure  about  any  bolts  from  top  to  bottom.  Her  brother,  Amandus  Fluke, 
of  Quakertown,  her  sister,  Elizabeth  Benner,  Pleasant  Valley,  80  years,  her 
sister  Lidy  Ann  Gross,  Lower  Richland,   75  or  65  saw  it. 

The  stove  was  in  use  58  years  ago.  She  is  now  73  years  old  and  was  9 
years  when  she  went  there,  and  stayed  there  *  years,  or  15  years  old  when 
she  left.  Mrs.  Benner  is  the  oldest.  She  lives  with  her  son,  Tillman  Ben- 
ner, an  undertaker,  at  Pleasant  Valley. 

b.  Mr.  James  Home.  Came  to  Home  House.  We  saw  him  later  at  Mrs. 
Rheinhardt's.  Remembers  seeing  the  stove  at  the  Foulke  house,  w^hitewashed, 
also  saw  the  bolt  but  thinks  there  were  two  bolts  on  stove.  Also  one 
wooden  leg,  bucket  shape  made  of  plank  2  inches  thick,  1  foot  wide.  Don't 
remember  using  it.  He  and  brother  used  to  jump  up  on  stove  with  no  legs 
under  it.     A  rod  ran  back  into  fireplace  with  a  pin  to  hold  stove  in  place. 

c.  Inf.  of  Mr.  Henry  Home — Seen  at  Mrs.  Rheinhardt's  house — Says  that 
a  long  bolt  ran  horizontally  from  fireplace  side  through  postament  across 
top  of  stove  so  as  to  meet  top  of  bolt  on  end  plate  at  its  top  and  that  this 
had  a  wedge  slip  on  fireplace  side  and  also  that  similar  bolt  ran  out  at 
bottom   of  stove   to   fireplace. 

d.  Inf.  of  Mrs.  Rheinhardt.  Visited  her  at  her  house  on  main  road  be- 
tween Home  house  and  Pleasant  Valley.  Wall  was  larger  at  one  time.  Mrs. 
Rheinhardt's  father  (Reuben  Home)  renewed  half  of  wall  extending  to  left 
towards  wooden  pannelling.  She  remembers  32  years  ago  that  her  father 
used  stove  to  warm  room  in  winter.  Johnson  Yerkes,  formerly  reporter 
South  Bethlehem  Globe,  used  to  come  to  house.  Her  brother  slept  in  room 
when  stove  was  used.  Formerly  used  for  working  butter  and  storing  milk. 
One  plate  taken  by  Thomas  Wieder,  Warren,  Ohio,  which  was  cracked — 
used  over  a  well.     Her  father  took  stove  apart. 

e.  Inf.  Mr.  Samuel  S.  Moyer.  Seen  at  the  house.  He  saw  the  stove  as  a 
boy  in  its  natural  state  about  70  years  ago,  when  coming  to  make  cider. 
Does  not  remember  seeing  legs  under  stove. 

f.  Dr.  Ott  of  Pleasant  Valley,  who  met  us  at  the  house,  saw  stove  in 
position  from  1876  to  1896  and  had  frequently  seen  it  before  in  position  for 
20  years  earlier.  When  seen  no  legs  and  whitewashed.  Weight  of  wall  pre- 
vented falling  of  stove.  The  room  in  which  stove  protruded  was  used  as  a 
junk  room.  The  house  is  built  of  stone,  walls  are  laid  in  clay  mortar  and 
very  heavily  whitewashed.  Ceiling  beams  are  sawed  and  lathed  with  lath 
heavily  plastered.  Floor  above  15  inch  boards — two  wall  closets  in  room, 
an  old  shelf  and  part  of  wall  jianeled  on  side  of  fireplace.  House  is  rotting. 
The  postament  had  not  been  built  at  time  of  construction  of  fireplace.  Later 
constructed  showing  crack  between  it  and  the  wall.  The  original  opening  in 
postament  for  insertion  of  stove  is  now  (August,  1915)  walled  up.  Rev. 
A.  R.  Home  owned  house  when  stove  was  in  position.     He  sold  it  to  James 


394  A  LOST   STOVEPLATE   IXSCRTPTIOX 

down  by  us,  that  the  stove  had  been  in  regular  use  from  1850  to 
1876 ;  that  very  long  sticks  reaching  through  the  wall  from 
the  fireplace  side  and  sometimes  with  their  ends  resting  upon 
chairs,  had  been  used  to  heat  the  stove;  that  after  the  death 
of  Dr.  Home's  mother  in  1876,  and  the  sale  of  the  house,  the 
stove  had  fallen  into  disuse,  but  had  remained  standing,  and 
whitewashed  like  the  walls,  until  about  1896,  when  it  was  pulled 
down.  We  further  learned  that  as  late  as  1851,  the  stove  was 
raised  on  iron  legs,  but  later  rested  on  a  wooden  prop,  sawed 
out  of  a  two  inch  plank,  one  foot  wide,  at  the  top,  and  some- 
what less  at  the  bottom ;  that  finally  the  legs  had  disappeared 
and  the  stove  had  projected  from  the  postament,  entirely  with- 
out legs ;  and  th^t  either  one  or  two  long  iron  bolts  running  along 
the  top  and  bottom  of  the  stove,  from  fastenings  upon  its  end 
plate,  back  through  the  wall  and  into  the  fireplace  on  the  kitchen 
side,  had  at  last  served  to  hold  the  stove  in  position  without  legs. 
During  our  investigations,  Mr.  Rice,  who  had  been  hunting 
stoveplates,  found  a  duplicate  of  the  "Raging  Year"  plate  (Fig- 
ure 2)  at  a  neighboring  farm  house,  which  I  then  bought  for  the 
museum,  without  connecting  it  in  any  way  with  our  researches 
at  the  Hofne  house.  Meanwhile,  in  examining  the  ashes  of  the 
kitchen  fire  place,  we  found  several  fragments  either  of  the  plate 
illustrated  in  Figure  1,  namely  the  S.  F.  of  1756  "Be  not  over- 
come of  Evil"  or  of  the  other  S.  F.  of  the  same  date,  "Judge  not." 
This  last  discovery  seemed  to  rob  the  expedition  of  much  of  its 
interest,  for  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Foulke  had  said 
that  she  remembered  seeing  these  fragments  in  the  ashes  when 
the  original  stove  was  in  place  (See  note  2),  I  was  convinced 
either  that  she  was  mistaken,  or  that  these  pieces  represented 
burnt  out  and  replaced  parts  of  the  original  stove,  for  which  as 

Shelley  of  Richland,  Pa.  Shelley  sold  to  Reuben  Home.  The  latter  tore  out 
stove  about  ZO  years  ago.  Then  Dr.  Ott  bought  it  of  Home,  and  neglected 
to  take   it  away. 

g.  Mrs.  Foulke,  whom  we  visited  at  her  home  in  Richlandtown,  had  lived 
in  the  Home  house.  Saw  the  jamb  stove  standing  but  not  in  use.  The  five 
plates  of  the  stove  now  in  possession  of  Dr.  Ott,  Pleasant  Valley.  Two  left 
side  plates  of  "Judge  Not'  were  lying  in  the  fireplace  as  pavement  in 
August,  1915.  Mrs.  Foulke  remembers  the  stove  protruding  into  room  back 
of  fireplace,  so  built  into  wall  that  a  ledge  or  butment  or  shelf  extended 
over  it  and  down  side  upon  which  shelf  clock,  jugs  and  various  objects  were 
placed.  She  says  that  she  was  told  that  long  sticks  of  wood  were  used  in 
firing  stove  and  pushed  in,  long  ends  of  which  would  rest  on  chair  or  other 
object,  but  she  does  not  remember  what  kind  of  legs  under  stove.  Mrs. 
Foulke  don't  remember  any  iron  door  on  fireplace  side.  She  remembers  date 
1756  on  stove. 

At  that  time  stove  was  whitewashed.  Dr.  Ott  of  Pleasant  Valley  pulled 
the  stove  down.     In  winter  time  used  as  sleeping  room  where  stove  was. 


Figure  5 

JAMB   STOVE-HOI.E    IX   THE   HORNE   HOUSE. 

Showing  podtament  after  removal  of  walled  up  stove-hole. 


A  LOST  STOVEPLATE  INSCRIPTION  395 

the  commonest  of  all  the  stoves  found  in  Bucks  county,  I  had 
long,  since,  as  before  remarked,  lost  interest. 

So  much  for  our  tirst  visit  to  the  Home  house.  Our  notes 
and  photographs,  coming  too  late  for  insertion  in  The  Bible  in 
Iron,  had  established  some  interesting  facts  as  to  the  construc- 
tion and  use  of  the  ancient  stoves,  but  we  had  found  no  new- 
plate  or  inscription  of  interest. 

Three  more  years  had  passed,  when  in  the  summer  of  1918,  I 
began  the  investigation  of  the  architectural  remains  of  Bucks 
county,  namely:  houses,  barns,  wells,  springhouses.  caves,  etc 
embodied  in  five  volumes  of  manuscript  notes,  now  in  the  library 
of  our  museum.  These  researches  brought  us  again  to  the  Home 
house.  We  photographed  it,  studied  the  old  and  new  wings,  ex- 
amined all  the  doors,  latches,  hinges,  staircases,  floors,  rafters, 
windows,  etc.,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  old  wing 
was  built  about  1756.  and  that  the  new  wing  was  added  about 
1800  (See  note  1).  But  the  building,  although  recently  roofed 
by  its  then  owner,  Dr.  Brown,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  owing  to 
the  weakness  of  its  clay  laid  walls,  was  as  we  saw  in  very  bad 
condition,  and  must  soon,  unless  reinforced  in  some  way.  fall 
to  the  ground.  Its  great  historical  interest  induced  by  friend, 
Mr.  R.  P.  Hommel,  of  Lehigh  University,  Bethlehem,  to  buy 
it  in  1921,  and  begin  the  work  (interrupted  by  his  present  ab- 
sence in  China)  of  restoring  and  saving  it.  Then  it  was, 
that  our  first  thought,  after  propping  the  walls  and  boarding 
up  the  doors  and  windows,  was  to  restore  the  stove,  so  that 
one  house  at  least  would  exist  in  Pennsylvania,  showing  one  of 
these  ancient  stoves  still  in  its  original  position,  and  still  in  use, 
when  Air.  Hommel  chose  to  build  a  fire  in  it.  At  this  point, 
my  special  story,  interrupted  by  these  digressions,  again  begins. 

\\'hat  had  become  of  the  five  original  plates?  It  was  desirable 
to  find  them  if  possible,  but  in  this  connection  I  remembered  that 
there  was  some  difficulty  in  the  original  notes  as  to  Dr.  Ott's  evi- 
dence. Had  he  or  had  he  not  removed  them  from  the  premises? 
Unfortunately  he  had  died  in  the  meantime,  but  we  visited  his 
widow  at  Pleasant  Valley,  and  wdien  she  told  us  that  she  was 
certain  that  her  husband  had  never  brought  the  plates  home, 
and  when  no  sign  of  them  appeared  in  her  barn,  wood  house,  or 
out  buildings,  we  gave  up  the  search,  but  were  not  discouraged. 


396  A  LOST   STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTION 

because  I  had  just  found  (through  the  help  of  Mr.  Montague), 
in  Berks  county,  a  complete  example  of  this  S.  F.  stove,  which 
would  do  almost  as  well  for  the  restoration  as  the  original  itself. 
Just  as  we  were  about  to  bring  this  Berks  county  stove  to  the 
place,  it  occurred  to  me  to  write  to  Mr.  Wieder  of  Warren,  Ohio, 
who  according  to  Mrs.  Rhinehardt,  had  carried  off  one  of  the 
original  plates,  and  might  have  them  all.  His  answers  to  my 
letters,  however,  (See  foot  note  3)  entirely  upset  our  restoration 
project,  for  although  he  told  us  that  he  had  not  taken  any  of  the 
plates  away  with  him,  he  proved  by  sending  us  a  drawing  of 
one  of  the  original  sides,  which  he  had  copied  on  the  spot,  that 
we  had  been  working  upon  the  wrong  stove,  and  that  the  stove 
as  seen  by  Mr.  Wieder,  and  which  originally  stood  in  the  old 

COMMUNICATION   FROM   THOMAS   H.   WIEDER. 

3  I  am  67  years  old.  I  lived  with  David  Home  one  winter,  in  1868,  in  the 
brick  house  on  the  same  farm.  This  old  house  was  the  first  farm  house, 
man  by  the  name  of  Reaser  used  to  own  it.  He  had  one  daughter.  She 
was  born  1798.  David  L.  Home  born  1813  was  married  to  this  only  daughter 
of  Reaser.  They  were  the  parents  of  Abraham  Home  the  only  son,  a  highly 
educated  man  who  died  at  Allentown  a  few  years  ago.  This  David  Ij.  Hoi'iie 
built  the  brick  house  after  he  was  too  old  to  work  the  farm.  The  people 
that  used  to  work  the  farm  used  to  live  in  the  old  house  after  David  Home 
died,  1868,  or  rather  his  widow,  1876.  Reuben  Home  bought  the  old  house 
with  a  small  acreage  of  ground  to  it  while  he  lived  there  after  1876. 

This  stove  was  taken  down  by  him  and  I  used  to  see  the  plates  lay  around 
the  yard.  It  must  have  been  there  that  they  had  one  to  cover  a  well.  There 
were  five  plates,  two  sides,  top,  and  bottom,  and  back  end.  The  back  end 
was  held  together  with  two  long  bolts,  the  front  end  was  built  in  the  wall. 
This  old  part  of  the  house,  I  am  sure.  Mrs.  David  L.  Home  told  me,  was 
built  when  the  stove  was  put  up  in  17  56.  The  new  part  wa.s  built  around 
1800.  or  not  far  from  it.  I  remember  quite  well  how  the  old  house  looked 
inside.  Big  cider  press  back  of  the  house  or  on  the  back  side  rather.  A  big 
log  barn  about  100  feet  away  from  the  house  towards  Pleasant  Valley  and 
a  big  wagon  shed  with  corn  crib  on  one  side.  I  just  remember  how  the 
whole  thing  looked  like  in  1868.  I  make  trips  out  that  way  every  year. 
Last  summer  I  missed  to  call  around  Springfield.  All  my  people  are  dead 
that  used  to  live  around  there.  Three  of  Reuben  Homes  sons  are  living  yet. 
They  ought  to  be  able  to  tell  a  whole  lot  about  the  place.  Let  me  know  if 
you  intend  to  make  new  plates  to  put  this  stove  back.  If  I  was  there  I  could 
tell  you  very  near  how  large  it  was  in  the  room.  It  used  to  make  a  lot  of 
heat  but  had  to  go  out  into  the  kitchen  to  see  the  fire. 

That  inscription  on  the  plate  I  tried  hard  to  find  out  what  it  means,  but 
was  unable  to  find  out.  I  could  send  you  the  corner  I  broke  off  and  you 
could  see  how  heavy  the  plates  were.  There  weren't  many  foundries  in  the 
United  States  to  make  plates  those  days.  Have  a  few  Indian  relics  that 
were  found  around  there  and  quite  a  few  old  stories  that  the  old  people  told 
me  happened  when  they  were  young.  Things  have  changed  wonderful  since 
then.  In  1835  the  snow  was  so  deep  that  they  couldn't  see  the  fences,  they 
could  driv  the  horses  over  the  top,  drive  in  any  direction.  In  the  spring  of 
1868  the  sky  was  so  full  of  chicken  hawks  for  two  days  that  the  sun  couldn't 
shine  through,  when  nobody  knew  where  they  came  from  or  where  they 
went  to.  The  same  year  the  stars  dropped  so  bad  some  people  got  scared, 
of  course  I  was  one  of  them. 

There  used  to  be  an  old  land  turtle  on  that  farm  it  had  the  date  cut  on 
its  belly,  before  1800,  I  seen  it  once.  I  often  wonder  if  its  there  yet.  An 
old  schoolhouse  used  to  stand  close  to  the  house  where  you  seen  Mrs.  Rein- 
hart  She  is  dead.  Died  with  the  flue.  The  big  Weierbacks  boys  of  those 
days  used  to  go  to  Sunday  school,  also  Joe  and  Charles  Mumbaur.  It  was 
also  the  place  where  Abraham  Home  learned  his  first  lesson.  I  seen  this 
schoolhouse  before  it  was  torn  down.  Mrs.  David  L.  Home  used  to  tell  me 
some  great  things  that  happened  in  this  schoolhouse.     I  guess  I  better  stop 


A  LOST   STOVEPLATE  INSCRIPTION  397 

Horne  house,  was  not  at  all  the  S.  F.  of  1756  (Figure  1)  but 
the  "Raging  Year"  of  1756.  (Figure  2)  "Dis  ist  das  air  darin 
witet."  He  wrote  the  words  very  clearly,  so  that  there  could  be  no 
mistake  about  the  well-remembered  inscription.  The  stove, 
therefore,  that  we  wanted  was  not  one  of  the  commonest  but  one 
of  the  rarest  ones  yet  known,  to  which  no  end  plate  had  ever 
been  found.  No  restoration  of  it  was  possible,  so  I  dismissed 
the  plan  from  my  mind,  and  turned  back  again  to  the  old  riddle 
suggested  by  the  letter  of  the  lost  meaning  of  the  broken  words, 
and  wrote  again  to  this  one  man  alive,  namely  Mr.  Wieder,  who 
I  thought  could  solve  it.  I  addressed  him  in  polite  terms,  about 
as  follows : 

"My  dear  Friend: 

Your  inscription  is  all  very  well,  but  there  is  not  enough  of  it.  Where 
is  the  rest  of  it?  Why  did  you  not  take  down  what  you  saw  on  the 
end  plate,  which  would  have  completed  the  sentence?" 

Mr.  Wieder  wrote  back  (contradicting  his  note  No.  3)  to  the 
eflfect  that  the  stove  had  already  been  pulled  down  and  was  in 
pieces  when  he  copied  the  inscription,  and  that  there  was  no  end 
plate.  He  had  brought  no  plate  to  Ohio,  but  only  a  little  broken 
corner  which  he  had  carried  off  as  a  memento,  and  sent  by  sepa- 
ate  enclosure  to  me  with  his  letter.  \\'as  he  right?  If  not.  it  then 
occurred  to  me  for  the  first  time  that  a  measurement  of  the 
stove-hole  in  the  postament  at  the  Horne  house  would  settle  the 
question,  but  when  a  few  days  later,  Mr.  Hommel,  went  there  to 
take  the  dimensions,  he  found  that  in  the  meantime  the  whole 
postament,  weakened  by  our  removal  of  the  wall  which  had 
masked  its  opening,  had  crumbled  down  and  lay  in  ruins  upon 
the  floor.  Fortunately,  however,  our  obscure  pencil  notes,  in  the 
original  note  book,  giving  the  dimensions,  were  still  legible,  and 

till  I  hear  from  you  again.     You  might  think  I  was  trying  to  write  a  book 
about  Springfield.      Of  course   I   love   Springfield.      I  spent  my  boyhood  days 
there.     Rev.  Bert  Hottle  was  a  school  mate  of  mine. 
Yours  truly. 

THOS.    H.    WIEDER, 

318    North    Avenue, 

Warren,    Ohio. 

Warren,   Ohio,  Aug.    11,   1920. 
Gentlemen, 

I  got  your  letter  asking  about  the  old  wall  stove  at  the  Horne  house. 
Yes,  I  warmed  myself  at  this  stove  more  than  once  in  the  winter  of  1868. 
I  am  going  to  Sprinfield  in  a  very  short  time  and  if  you  were  there  I  could 
tell  you  a  whole  lot  about  that  place.  I  could  write  to  you  the  time  I  will 
be  there  and  you  could  come  there  then  I  could  explain  all  I  knew.  Let  me 
know  about  it.     I  guess  I  am  the  only  living  person  that  knows  about  it. 

THOS.   H.   WIEDER. 


398  A  LOST   STOVEPLATE   IXSCRIPTIOX 

they  proved  that  the  S.  F.  stove,  which  we  had  been  considering, 
was  altogether  too  small  for  the  postament  hole,  but  that  the 
Raging  Year  stove  (Figure  2)  fitted  it  exactly.  Mr.  Wieder  was 
right,  and  my  own  hasty  conclusions  in  1915  wrong. 

Mr.  Wieder's  letters  had  been  interesting,  as  fixing  the  identity 
of  the  stove,  but  he  had  missed  its  front  plate  and  as  far  as  the 
meaning  of  its  mysterious  inscription  as  shown  on  figure  2  was 
concerned,  he  had  told  us  nothing. 

Just  as  I  was  about  to  again  dismiss  the  subject  from  my  mind, 
another  glimmer  of  light,  somewhat  in  the  nature  of  a  "will-o- 
the-wisp,"  was  thrown  upon  our  researches  by  Mr.  Hommel, 
who,  not  long  before  his  departure  for  China,  discovered  an 
obituary  notice  of  Dr.  A.  R.  Home  in  the  National  Educator  of 
Allentown,  Pa.,  for  January,  1903  (See  note  4)  which  after  de- 
scribing the  Home  house  and  supposing  that  it  had  been  built 
partly  for  defense  against  the  Indians,  said  that  the  latter  fact 
was  evidenced  by  an  inscription  on  an  old  stoveplate  in  the 
house,  which  read — "Dies  is  das  Jahr  die  Inchen  war,  1764," 
meaning  by  literal  translation — "This  is  the  year  the  Indians 
were,"  or  the  year  of  the  Indian  attack.  The  old  puzzle  resur- 
rected by  Mr.  Wieder,  rose  before  me,  and  for  a  moment  the 
solution  seemed  within  reach.  The  newspaper  was  wrong,  yet 
right.  The  sentence  quoted  by  the  writer  could  not  have  been 
invented.  The  date  was  wrong,  and  the  inscription  followed  the 
original,  only  in  part.  It  gave  the  meaning  commemorating  the 
French  and  Indian  War  of  1756,  but  with  impossible  words. 
One  of  which  however  stuck  in  my  memory,  the  curious  term 
"Inchen,"  the  Pennsylvania  German  for  Indian,  and  used,  I  re- 
membered in  connection  with  the  "Hilltown  Busts,"  described  by 

*  National  Educator,  Allentown,  Pa.,  Jan.,  1903. 

From  obituary  of  Rev.  A.  R.  Home,  D.D. 

He  was  born  March  24,  1834,  on  the  family  homestead,  in  Springfield  town- 
ship, Bucks  county,  as  a  son  of  David  L.  Home  and  his  wife,  Mary,  a 
bom  Reasor.  On  both  father  and  mother's  side  he  was  descended  from  the 
Pennsylvania  Germans,  a  race  that  has  helped  to  make  Pennsylvania  what 
it  is  today.  His  grandfather,  Abraham  Reasor,  an  early  settler  in  Spring- 
field township,  possessed  184  acres  of  land,  located  on  Cook's  creek.  The 
one  story  part  of  the  old  house  bears  the  date  of  1843.  In  1760  John  and 
Thomas  Penn  conveyed  to  him  150  additional  acres.  This  property  has  re- 
mained in  the  family,  therefore,  for  more  than  150  years.  The  house  is  still 
standing  and  is  the  oldest  in  the  township.  Its  thick  walls  show  that  it 
dates  back  to  the  time  when  the  woods  resounded  with  the  war  whoop  of 
the  Indian,  and  that  it  was  not  only  intended  for  shelter,  but  also  for  de- 
fence. That  such  it  had  been  is  evidenced  by  the  inscription  on  an  old 
stove  plate  which  read:  "Dies  is  das  Jahr  die  Inchen  war,  1764."  meaning 
by  a  literal  translation,  "This  is  the  year  the  Indians  were,'  or  the  year  of 
the  Indian  attack. 


A   LOST   STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTION  399 

Rev.  Dengler,  in  our  Proceedings,  Vol.  II,  page  634.  As  at  this 
ignis  fatitus  any  further  research  seemed  hopeless,  I  again  tried 
to  drop  the  subject  from  my  thoughts,  though  without  knowing 
it,  it  appeared  that  I  had  got  too  deely  involved  to  escape.  An- 
other year  passed,  when,  one  night,  the  telephone  bell  rang.  Mr. 
A.  H.  Rice  was  calling  from  Bethlehem.  He  had  found  a  re- 
markable end  stove-plate  near  Brownsburg,  Pa.,  with  an  inscrip- 
tion upon  it,  that  had  bafifled  all  his  Pennsylvania-German  friends, 
who,  one  after  the  other,  had  come  to  see  it  day  after  day,  in  his 
store,  and  tried  in  vain,  to  decipher  it.  He  would  sell  it  for 
twelve  dollars.  "Send  it  down,"  I  said,  and  he  sent  it.  There  it 
is.  Figure  7.  It  came  one  afternoon,  and  I  began  working  upon 
it  that  night,  with  a  student's  lamp.  The  inscription  appeared  to 
be  entirely  new.  As  you  see,  it  is  badly  rusted,  but  when  I  saw 
the  last  word  SCHAF  (meaning  sheep)  I  was  again  misled, 
for  I  thought  I  had  at  last  found  a  clue  to  the  sheep's 
head  design,  on  so  many  of  the  plates,  which,  as  I  have  said,  had 
defied  elucidation  for  the  last  twenty-five  years.  Yet  how  could 
this  be  solved  in  three  words?  For  there  were  only  three  upon 
the  plate.  I  turned  to  the  preceding  word,  the  last  syllable  of 
which  you  see  is  "schin,"  with  the  preceding  letters  rusted  away. 
What  could  schin  mean?  I  held  the  lamp  up  and  down  at  va- 
rious angles;  went  back  to  my  study,  hunted  (in  vain)  through 
the  Bible  concordance  and  my  German  dictionaries,  and  without 
being  a  German  scholar,  concluded  that  there  was  no  word  in  the 
whole  German  language  ending  in  the  syllable  schin.  The  first 
word  of  the  plate  was  gone  altogether,  as  you  see. 

Up  to  this  point,  the  relic  had  in  no  way  connected  itself 
either  with  the  Home  house,  Mr.  Wieder,  or  the  lost  inscription 
on  Figure  2  which  is  the  subject  of  my  paper. 

It  was  getting  late.  I  was  burning  the  midnight  oil,  and  I  felt 
a  headache  coming  on,  but  one  more  look  at  the  schin.  And  then, 
out  of  the  "lumber  room  of  memory,"  suddenly  flashed  the  word 
Inschin,  suggested,  no  doubt,  by  the  Allentown  newspaper  article. 
A  good  old  Pennsylvania-German  word,  but  phonetic,  of  course, 
therefore,  in  no  dictionary.  A  thing  for  the  ear,  not  the  eye. 
No  wonder  it  defied  Mr.  Rice's  friends.  With  it  rose  up  recol- 
lections, now  a  year  old,  of  the  Home  house,  and  the  long  lost 
meaning  of  the  mysterious  sentence  on  the  Raging  Year  plate. 


400  A   LOST   STOVEPLATE   INSCRIPTION 

(Figure  2).  Here  it  was  at  last.  But  stop,  what  of  the  final 
word  schaff  The  Allentown  writer  had  it  zvar.  But  he  was 
wrong?  His  zv  was  certainly  sch.  Still — schaf — sheep — Indian 
sheep — nonsense !  The  Indian  had  nothing  to  do  with  sheep. 
The  sheep  is  a  European  animal  brought  here  by  the  white  man. 
"Go  to  bed,  my  friend,"  said  I  to  myself,  "you  are  in  bad  con- 
dition, you  will  be  awake  all  night."  One  more  guess.  The 
final  F.  The  Allentown  man  makes  it  R.  Suppose  he  is  right. 
Suppose  the  upper  loop  and  lower  tail  of  an  original  R  has 
been  rusted  away  here  so  that  this  apparent  F  is  no  F  but 
R — then — SCHAR.  The  well  known,  clean  cut,  simple 
German  word  struck  me  like  a  bullet.  It  means  in  EngHsh, 
host,  war-band,  or  war-party.  At  last,  I  had  found  it,  after 
twenty-five  years.  Thus,  by  means  of  the  only  end  plate  ever 
heard  of,  the  long  lost  meaning  came.  1756  was  a  bad  year,  one 
of  the  years  of  the  French  and  Indian  War,  the  year  in  which 
General  Braddock  was  defeated,  the  year  in  which  the  Indians, 
after  slaying  their  own  brethren,  at  Gnadenhutten,  attacked  the 
Bethlehem  stockade,  terrorized  the  Lehigh  valley,  scalped,  and 
killed  in  their  own  fashion,  all  the  white  men  within  their  reach. 
One  of  the  mould-carvers,  perhaps  at  Durham  Furnace,  thought 
he  would  commemorate  this  terrible  year  with  this  stove.  DIS 
1ST  DAS  JAHR  DARIN  WITET  DER  INCHIN  SCHAR— 
translated — "This  is  the  year  in  which  rages  the  Indian  War 
band." 

At  last  I  lit  a  candle,  blew  out  the  student's  lamp,  and  went 
to  bed. 

LATER  INFORMATION. 
Just  as  this  paper  was  going-  to  press,  a  singular  sequence  to  the  above 
narrative  has  occurred.  On  August  20,  1926,  Mr.  Joseph  B.  Sanford  de- 
scribed to  me  (over  the  telephone)  the  side  plate  of  the  Raging  Year  stove, 
cast  with  a  circular  top,  i.  e.  transformed  into  a  fireback,  just  found  by  him, 
walled  in  the  back  of  a  jiarlor  fireplace  in  an  old  farmhouse  once  owned  by 
the  late  Hon.  Hampton  W.  Rice,  about  two  miles  north  of  Paxsons  Corner 
in  Solebury  Township.  To  my  knowledge  no  such  altered  stoveplate-fireback 
had  yet  appeared,  and  I  supposed  the  specimen  to  be  a  recent  recast  made 
by  some  modern  artistic  tenant  of  the  house.  I  therefore  visited  the  house 
on  August  27th.  with  Mr.  Sanford,  when  we  learned  from  the  present  tenant, 
Mr.  Francis  C.  Pitting,  that  the  fireplace,  opened  by  him,  had  been  walled 
up  over  the  plate  many  years  before  the  days  of  artistic  tenants,  jDrobably 
about  1850-70,  that  the  house  was  built  before  1776,  and  that  an  old  neigh- 
borhood-tradition, vouched  for  a  vista  cut  through  intervening  woods  to  per- 
mit signalling  in  ca.«e  of  an  Indian  attack.  This  eleventh-hour  unique  relic 
is  therefore  the  chief  plate  of  the  Raging  Year  stove,  cast  into  a  fireback,  to 
commemorate  the  Indian  terror  of  1756.  W^as  it  cast  for  general  sale  to  the 
threatened  pioneers  by  the  same  furnace  that  cast  the  stove?  But  why  in 
German  in  Engh.sh-settled  Solebury?  V^hy  was  the  inscription  not  completed 
when  the  pattern  was  re-shaped?  Does  it  substantiate  the  forest-signal 
tradition  of  fear  in  lower  Bucks  County,  when  real  danger  only  existed  in 
what  was  then  upper  Bucks  County,  namely  about  Bethlehem  and  the 
Minisinks,   in    1756? 


Figure   7 


THE    IXDIAX    WAR    PLATE. 


(The  lost   end   Plate.) 
Museum  No.   17947. 


The  Making  of  Felt  Hats. 

BY   HORACE    M.    MANN,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting-,   January    21,    1922.) 

SOME  kind  of  covering  for  the  head,  either  for  defense  or 
ornament,  appears  to  have  been  generally  worn  in  all  ages 
and  countries  where  the  inhabitants  have  made  any  progress 
in  the  arts  of  civilized  life.  Hats  may  be  of  many  different  ma- 
terials, shapes,  sizes  and  colors  and  in  fact  are  as  numerous  in 
kind  as  are  the  various  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  mankind. 
An  attempt  to  give  the  history  of  the  hat  would  require  a  volume 
in  itself.  It  is  only  hats  made  of  fur  worked  into  a  compact  mass 
known  as  felt  that  I  intend  to  discuss.  Even  in  this  connection, 
the  method  of  producing  the  material  will  be  dealt  with  alone,  to 
the  entire  exclusion  of  any  effort  to  enlarge  upon  the  forms  of 
headgear  into  which  this  felted  fur  might  be  worked. 

The  whole  process  of  making  felt,  whether  for  hats  or  other 
purposes,  is  based  upon  conditions  which  result  from  the  matting 
together  and-  intimate  adhesion  of  certain  animal  fibres  that  are 
so  marked  as  to  fit  them  for  felting.  On  examination  under  a 
strong  miscroscope  the  hairs,  or  filaments  of  wool,  appear  ser- 
rated or  covered  with  jagged  edges  overlaping  each  other  in  a 
manner  resembling  that  of  the  scales  of  a  fish.  On  this  condition 
of  the  hair  lies  the  foundation  of  felting.  In  hat  making  the  furs 
most  generally  used  are,  beaver,  rabbit  and  hare,  seal,  mole,  and 
sometimes,  lambs'  wool. 

In  felting  any  of  these  materials  together,  the  first  object  of 
the  workman  is  to  obtain  the  most  complete  separation  of  the 
fibres,  and  to  dispose  a  layer  of  them  in  every  possible  direction 
with  regard  to  each  other ;  this  is  effected  by  means  of  bowing. 
The  fur  is  first  well  washed,  carded  and  thoroughly  dried.  The 
"stock"  or  amount  of  fur  necessary  to  make  the  desired  hat  is 
weighed  out  and  placed  on  an  enclosed  bench  called  a  "hurl"  or 
"hurdle",  about  three  feet  high  by  five  feet  long  and  four  feet 
deep.  Tvn^o  sides  of  this  bench  are  divided  from  the  next  work- 
man by  partitions  running  from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling,  the  back 
is  formed  by  the  side  of  the  main  building  and  the  front  is  open 


402  THE    MAKING   OF   FELT   HATS 

for  the  workman  to  stand  before  and  operate  the  bow.  These 
partitions  are  placed  to  keep  out  as  much  air  as  possible  because 
after  the  fur  has  been  bowed  for  some  time  it  becomes  so  light 
that  a  pufif  of  wind  would  blow  some  of  it  away.  Each  bench 
or  hurdle  is  lighted  by  a  small  window  in  the  wall  of  the  main 
building  and  the  rear  of  the  hurdle.  In  each  hurdle  the  bow  is 
suspended  by  a  stout  cord  from  the  ceiling.  This  bow  is  a  strong 
pole  seven  feet  long  by  two  inches  in  diameter,  to  which  are 
fixed  two  bridges,  the  upper  one,  nearest  the  window,  called  the 
"cock",  and  the  lower  one,  nearest  the  workman,  the  "breech". 
The  cock  is  a  quarter  round  piece  of  wood  seven  inches  by  six 
inches  wide ;  the  breech  is  a  rectangular  piece  of  wood  eleven 
inches  long  by  seven  inches  wide.  Over  these  bridges,  the  cock 
and  the  breech,  is  stretched  a  piece  of  catgut  in  the  same  manner 
as  a  string  on  a  vioiln  bow.  This  string  is  plucked  by  a  "bow- 
pin",  a  small  stick  six  to  seven  inches  long  with  a  knob  at  each  end. 

The  workman,  with  his  allowance  of  fur  or  stock  on  the  hurdle 
before  him,  grasps  the  bow  horizontally  with  his  left  hand,  plac- 
ing the  bow-string  near  the  right  hand  edge  of  the  material  and 
gives  it  a  pluck  with  the  bow-pin.  The  string  immediately  flies 
back  amongst  the  fur,  scattering  a  part  before  it  to  a  distance 
proportioned  to  the  force  with  which  it  was  pulled.  By  re- 
peated strokes  the  whole  is  thus  subjected  to  the  bow;  and  this 
bowing  is  continued  until  all  the  filaments  of  each  hair  are  per- 
fectly opened  and  dilated,  and  having  thus  fallen,  together  in  all 
possibe  directions,  form  a  thin  fluffy  mass  about  three  feet  long 
by  eighteen  inches  wide  and  some  three  to  four  inches  thick.  The 
quantity  thus  treated  is  called  a  "batt". 

When  the  batt  is  sufficiently  bowed  it  is  covered  with  a  large 
piece  of  soft  leather.  The  workman,  taking  the  "basket",  con- 
sisting of  sixteen  very  light,  open,  straight  bars  of  wood,  joined 
together  by  three  heaver  transvere  bars,  the  central  one  of  which 
is  somewhat  higher  than  the  other  two  to  form  a  grip  for  the 
workman,  the  whole  sixteen  inches  long  by  fifteen  inches  wide, 
presses  gently  and  with  a  slight  sliding  motion  over  this  leather 
and  the  batt  of  fur  underneath  to  make  it  mat  together  sufficient 
for  him  to  handle.  Then  he  removes  the  leather  and  carefully 
folds  the  batt  into  two  or  four  folds  (called  "crozes"  in  Bethel, 
Connecticut),  and  following  a  pattern,  according  to  the  form  of 


THE    MAKING  OF   FELT   HATS  403 

hat  desired,  he  trims  with  a  smaU  short  bladed  knife  or  pulls 
away  with  his  fingers  the  part  not  needed  so  that  when  he 
opens  it  out  he  has  two  or  four  triangular  pieces.  These  he 
takes  next  to  a  kettle  of  hot  water  to  be  sized  or  felted  together. 
This  kettle  (called  by  the  hatters  of  Danbury  and  Bethel,  Con- 
necticut, a  "steamboat  kettle",  or  a  "sizing  kettle"),  is  a  large 
copper  or  brass  kettle,  permanently  erected  on  a  brick  or  stone 
flue,  with  an  interior,  circular  compartment,  open  at  the  bottom 
except  for  a  grate.  This  compartment  is  soldered  to  the  bottom 
of  the  main  kettle  and  held  firm  by  bars  running  from  the  rim 
of  the  interior  compartment  to  the  rim  of  the  main  kettle.  In 
this  interior  compartment  a  fire  is  built  of  wood,  charcoal  or  soft 
coal  which  heats  the  water  contained  between  this  inner  com- 
partment and  the  walls  of  the  main  kettle.  This  kettle  is  sur- 
rounded with  a  permanent  wooden  bench,  divided  into  four, 
six  or  eight  sections  for  a  similar  number  of  workmen.  The 
outside  edge  of  this  bench  is  a  few  inches  higher  than  the  rim  of 
the  kettle,  sloping  gradually  until  the  inside  edge  of  the  bench 
meets  the  rim  of  the  kettle  so  that  the  water  will  drain  back 
into  the  kettle.  The  kettle  and  bench  together  is  called  "a  bat- 
tery". To  clean  the  fire  in  the  fire-pot  of  the  kettle  the  work- 
man pours  cold  water  on  the  fire  forming  steam  which  blows  the 
ashes  down  through  the  grate  into  the  flue  underneath  the  kettle. 
To  soften  the  water  some  oatmeal  or  bran  is  added  to  facilitate 
the  felting. 

Into  this  kettle  of  hot  water  the  edges  of  the  batt  are  dipped 
and  very  carefully  united  to  form  a  cone-shaped  hat  body.  The 
whole  batt  is  then,  dipped  in  the  hot  water  and  drawn  out  on  the 
bench  where  it  is  rubbed  together  and  rolled  with  a  pair  of  wood- 
en rollers,  called  "pins",  about  fourteen  inches  long  by  two 
inches  in  diameter  and  tapering  toward  each  end.  The  workman 
wears,  over  the  palm  of  each  hand,  a  pad  of  stout,  oak  tanned 
leather,  soaked  for  a  long  time  in  urine,  to  protect  his  hands  from 
the  heat.  A  coarse  bristle  brush,  called  a  "sizing  brush",  is  used 
to  brush  away  any  dirt  and  to  sprinkle  additional  water  on  the 
work  as  it  is  needed. 

After  this  operation  has  proceeded  far  enough  to  produce  felt 
it  is  again  dampened  with  clean  warm  water,  and  closely  ex- 
amined for  holes  or  thin  spots  in  the  felt,  and,  on  any  of  these 


404  THE    MAKIXG   OF   FELT    HATS 

parts  found  to  be  deficient,  a  little  fur  is  added  and  worked  into 
the  main  body  by  the  thumb  of  the  workman.  A  quantity  of  fine 
cut  cotton,  which  will  not  felt,  is  sometimes  added  to  the  fur 
to  make  the  nap  raise  better.  When  this  cotton  is  to  be  added 
to  the  fur  the  whole  is  beaten  by  two  round  sticks,  twenty-seven 
inches  long,  called  "beating-up  sticks".  The  piece  of  felt  is  now 
a  cone-shaped  body,  covered  with  numerous  hairs  standing  up 
over  the  surface.  These  hairs  were,  in  the  beginning  of  the  hat 
making  industry,  pulled  out  by  women  by  means  of  a  pair  of 
tweezers,  much  like  doctors  use,  but  later  were  cut  off  by  means 
of  a  large  heavy  bladed  knife.  The  cone  is  folded  double  and 
laid  on  the  knee  of  the  workman,  who  wears  a  heavy  leather 
apron  or  pad  to  protect  his  knee,  and  shaved  downward  with 
the  "shaving  knife".  This  knife  is  about  fourteen  inches  long 
with  a  heavy  sharp  blade,  nine  inches  long  and  an  inch  and  a  half 
wide.  The  intended  hat  still  possesses  the  conical  shape  first  given 
it,  capable,  however,  with  a  moderate  degree  of  force  of  being 
extended  in  every  direction.  The  batt  is  dampened  with  warm 
water  and  the  edge  turned  up  all  around  the  width  desired  for 
the  brim  of  the  hat.  It  is  then  folded  in  half  and  violently  pulled 
with  both  hands  in  opposite  directions  at  the  point  of  the  cone ;  it 
is  opened  and  folded  the  other  way  and  again  pulled  in  the  same 
manner.  This  is  continued  until  on  being  opened  the  point  has 
been  worked  into  a  flat  crown.  The  flat  portion  is  then  placed 
on  a  wooden  hat  block  and  the  sides  forced  down  over  the  block 
and  tied  tight  at  the  bottom  with  a  stout  cord.  The  crown  is 
pressed  out  into  better  shape,  and  the  brim,  which  has  a  tendency 
to  curl,  is  flattened  by  wetting.  At  the  part  where  the  brim  is 
bent  away  from  the  sides,  the  line  is  made  distinct  and  sharp  by 
means  of  a  wooden  block,  four  inches  long,  three  and  a  half 
inches  wide  and  two  inches  thick,  shaved  off  to  a  sharp  edge. 
This  block  is  called  a  "tollocker"  and  is  used  in  many  ways  in 
shaping  the  hat  over  the  block.  A  thin  rectangular  piece  of 
copper,  five  by  four  inches,  called  a  "trench",  is  also  used  to 
scrape  off  the  surplus  moisture  and  to  assist  in  shaping  the  hat. 
The  hat,  approaching  some  form  and  shape,  still  has  the  edge  of 
the  brim  ragged  and  uneven.  To  make  this  edge  even  and  smooth 
a  "jack"  is  used  with  a  wooden  guide  shaped  the  same  as  the 
circumference  of  the  hat  block  with  an  adjustable  blade  which 


THE    MAKING   OF   FELT    HATS  405 

can  be  set  at  any  desired  distance  from  the  inside  edge  of  the 
brim  and  thus  regulate  the  width  of  the  brim.  This  jack  is  laid 
on  the  brim  with  the  guide  against  the  hat  block  and  drawn 
around  the  block  so  that  the  blade  will  trim  away  the  rim  at  the 
same  distance  all  around  the  hat.  The  man  working  a  hat  over 
the  block  wears  pads  of  rubber  with  an  incision  in  each  for  his 
thumb.  These  pads  or  gloves  protect  his  hands  as  he  presses 
and  draws  the  hat  down  over  the  block.  The  hat,  being  shaped 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  operator,  is  drawn  from  the  block  and 
thoroughly  dried  before  the  final  steps  of  stiiTening  and  finishing. 

After  the  hats  are  dried,  the  next  operation  they  undergo  is 
that  of  stiffening.  The  hat  is  dipped  into  shellac,  cut  by  means 
of  sal-soda.  As  much  of  the  hat  as  is  desired  to  be  stiffened  is 
dipped  into  this  shellac,  then  drawn  out  and  the  surplus  shellac 
scraped  off  with  the  copper  trench,  described  before,  while  the 
hat  was  being  block.  Common  salt  is  now  added  to  the  shellac 
remaining  on  the  hat  to  set  it  so  that,  if  necessary  hereafter  to 
dip  it  in  hot  water  the  shellac  will  not  melt  and  come  out  of  the 
hat.  The  degree  of  stiffness  can  be  regulated  by  the  amount  of 
shellac  left  on  the  hat. 

The  dry  hat,  after  stiffening  is  very  hard  and  rigid  and  of  an 
irregular  shape ;  preparatory  to  finishing,  therefore,  it  is  again 
blocked.  For  this  purpose  it  is  necessary  to  soften  the  shellac 
which  is  done  by  hanging  the  hat  over  the  steam  from  a  hot 
kettle  of  water  and  to  keep  it  soft  while  being  finished,  a  little 
hot  water  is  sprinkled  over  it  by  means  of  a  soft  brush.  It  is 
again  drawn  over  the  hat  block,  shaped  by  hand  and  pressed  by 
means  of  a  short  heavy  flat-iron  or  goose  called  a  "shell".  This 
shell  has  a  hollow  bottom  wherein  is  placed  a  red  hot  chunk  of 
cast  iron  called  a  "slug".  Each  shell  has  several  of  these  slugs 
which  are  kept  hot  while  the  shell  is  in  use  and  as  fast  as  one 
cools  off  in  the  shell  another  hot  one  takes  its  place.  With  this 
shell  the  hat  is  pressed  and  smoothed.  The  motion  always  being 
in  one  direction  so  that  the  nap  will  lay  in  one  direction  and  be- 
come smooth  and  glossy.  If  the  nap  is  stubborn  and  will  not  lay 
right  or  as  more  often  happens  contains  some  coarse  hairs  of 
uneven  length,  it  is  combed  or  carded  with  a  small  card  resembling 
a  miniature  wool  card  and  brushed  with  a  soft  brush. 

The  hat  is  now  shaped,  the  brim  is  curved  to  suit  the  style,  the 


406  THE    MAKING   OF   FELT   HATS 

nap  is  smooth  and  polished  and  all  that  remains  to  be  done  is  to 
put  in  the  lining,  the  sweat  band  and  outside  ribbon  or  hat  band, 
all  of  which  is  not  part  of  the  felter's  work  and  is  done  by  other 
persons,  mostly  women. 

These  methods  of  producing  a  felt  hat  are  not  those  practiced 
in  regular  hat  factories  but  such  as  w-ere  followed  in  small  local 
shops  of  a  few  workmen.  In  and  around  Danbury  and  Bethel, 
Connecticut,  a  farmer  would  gather  his  hired  men  or  a  few  neigh- 
bors and  start  making  felt  hats  during  the  slack  winter  months. 
His  shop,  where  this  work  was  followed,  was  called  a  "catgut", 
and  the  practice  of  this  irregular  hat  making,  "catgutting". 

All  the  above  processes  were  explained  to  me  by  Mr.  George 
B.  Fairchild,  Mr.  Samuel  Judson  and  Mr.  E.  Bevans,  all  of 
Bethel,  Connecticut,  and  all  old  hatters,  on  the  occasion  of  my 
visit  in  Bethel  in  search  of  the  tools  of  the  old  felt  hat  maker 
in  May,  1918.  All  of  the  tools  mentioned,  except  the  "steam- 
boat kettle",  were  found  and  are  now  in  the  museum  of  the 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society.  I  have  consulted,  TJic  Circle 
of  The  Mechanical  Arts,  Thomas  Martin,  Civil  Engineer,  Lon- 
don, 1813,  and  The  Book  of  English  Trades  and  Library  of  the 
Useful  Arts",  London,  1818,  to  refresh  my  memory  on  any  point 
that  I  was  uncertain  or  had  forgotten. 


Passing  Events  (Paper  No.  2). 

BY    FRANK    K.    SWAIN,    DOYLESTOWN,    PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting,   January    21,    1922.) 

This  paper  Is  a  continuation  of  Paper  No.  1,  read  before  this  society  on 
January   15,   1921.      See  page  324   ante. 

TELEPHONES — Although  several  attempts  had  been  made 
before  1875  to  invent  a  telephone  all  proved  unsatisfactory 
and  were  not  in  use.  In  that  year  Prof.  Alexander  G.  Bell, 
with  the  help  of  Thomas  A.  Watson,  a  young  electrician,  was 
trying  to  perfect  the  "Harmonic  Telegraph"  so  that  six  Morse 
messages  could  be  sent  over  a  single  wire,  at  the  same  time, 
without  interference.  They  worked  in  the  garret  of  a  little 
house  on  Court  street,  Boston,  and  on  the  night  of  June  2,  1875, 
the  whole  apparatus  went  wrong,  the  vibrators  stopped  working 
and  in  order  to  start  them  again  Mr.  Watson  plucked  them  sev- 
eral times.  Mr.  Bell  who  was  tuning  the  instruments  in  an 
adjoining  room,  cried  out,  as  he  rushed  into  the  room,  "Watson, 
Watson,  what  have  you  done.  Don't  change  anything."  The 
plucking  was  repeated  several  times  and  this  and  the  continuous 
current  gave  Bell  the  needed  hint.  According  to  Watson  the 
great  secrets  of  nature  are  held  by  little  demons  who  thwart  every 
effort  to  wrest  them  away.  But  on  this  night,  becoming  more 
careless,  or  satisfied  in  their  own  power  and  not  measuring  Prof. 
Bell's  mind,  they  lifted  the  curtain  for  only  a  second  and  by  the 
chance  plucking  of  the  wires  revealed  to  him  what  he  must  do 
to  successfully  carry  the  human  voice  over  an  electric  wire.  In 
a  second  he  understood  why  the  others  had  failed.  Their  method 
was  too  complicated  and  a  much  simpler  arrangement  was  possi- 
ble. There  was  no  sleep  in  the  Court  street  house  that  night. 
They  immediately  gave  up  the  harmonic  telegraph  and  started  to 
make  a  telephone. 

Then  followed  weeks  of  experiments  and  disappointments 
until  one  day  the  thing  worked.  The  first  message  ever  sent  by 
telegraph  was,  "What  Hath  God  Wrought,"  and  the  first  mes- 
sage sent  over  the  Bell  telephone  was,  "Mr.  Watson  please  come 
here,  I  want  you,"  and  this  was  sent  by  Prof.  Bell  himself  and 
received  bv  Mr.  Watson. 


408  PASSING   EVENTS    ( PAPER    NO.    2) 

Prof.  Bell  then  lectured  to  audiences  of  two  thousand  or  more, 
in  Salem,  Boston  and  other  cities.  Telephone  apparatus  was 
connected  to  telegraph  lines  and  large  receivers  were  suspended 
over  the  audience.  Mr.  Watson,  ten  to  twenty  miles  away,  would 
sing,  in  a  loud  voice,  "Hold  the  Fort,"  "Pull  for  the  Shore," 
"Yankee  Doodle,"  and  finally,  in  order  to  bring  down  the  house, 
"Do  Not  Trust  Him  Gentle  Lady,"  which  greatly  amused  the 
audience  and  he  could  hear  the  applause,  miles  away,  over  the 
wire. 

What  must  have  seemed  a  severe  shock  to  Boston  was  the 
fact  that  Prof.  Bell,  although  a  resident  of  that  city,  under- 
estimated its  importance  when  he  decided  that  the  loud,  un- 
harmonious  music  furnished  by  Mr.  Watson  which  he  consid- 
ered good  enough  for  them,  would  not  do  when  he  lectured  in 
New  York  City  where  he  hired  a  powerful  negro,  with  a  sweet 
voice,  to  sing  more  classic  music.  Mr.  Watson  was  stationed 
at  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.,  and  the  singer  went  there  in  the  after- 
noon for  a  rehearsal.  Without  an  audience  his  singing  was  not 
a  success  and  the  large  transmitters  into  which  he  sang,  seemed 
to  worry  him,  but  he  promised  to  do  better  in  the  evening.  As 
usual  the  phone  apparatus  was  connected  to  the  wire  in  a  tele- 
graph office  and  the  operator,  thinking  something  unusual  was 
about  to  happen,  asked  several  of  her  friends  to  come  around 
that  evening. 

An  audience  of  two  thousand,  seated  several  miles  away,  meant 
absolutely  nothing  to  the  negro  singer,  but  the  seven  girls  in  the 
telegraph  office  pleased  him  immensely  and  so  he  turned  and  sang 
to  them  and  not  a  sound  reached  New  York.  Mr.  Watson  was 
very  shy  when  ladies  were  around  and,  much  to  his  confusion, 
Prof.  Bell  phoned  that  he  would  have  to  sing.  Just  as  he  was 
about  to  bolt  through  the  door  he  realized  that  the  success  of  the 
whole  thing  depended  on  him.  Turning  around  he  bellowed  all 
his  songs  into  the  telephone,  every  word  of  which  was  heard  in 
the  lecture  hall  miles  away.  Never  before  had  sound  carried 
so  well. 

A  specification  and  drawing  of  the  original  Bell  telephone  was 
filed  in  the  United  States  Patent  Office  on  February  14,  1876, 
by  Prof.  Bell  and  in  the  summer  of  that  year  a  special  set  of 
telephones  was  made,  nicely  finished  and  polished   for  the  first 


PASSING   EVENTS    ( PAPER    NO.    2)  409 

time,  and  exhibited  at  the  Philadelphia  Centennial  where  Sir 
William  Thompson  tried  them  and  made  a  report  giving  an  ac- 
count of  the  satisfactory  tests. 

The  above  information  and  a  good  deal  more,  both  interesting 
and  amusing,  may  be  read  in  an  article,  "The  Birth  and  Baby- 
hood of  the  Telephone,"  by  Mr.  Thomas  A.  Watson,  published  in 
The  Telephone  Nezvs,  December  1,  1913. 

The  first  outdoor  telephone  line  was  run  from  Court  street, 
Boston,  to  Somerville,  Mass.,  in  April,  1877. 

There  was  no  large  organized  company  at  first  but  small  in- 
dependent companies  were  formed  in  various  cities  and  towns. 
The  Delaware  and  Atlantic  Company  covered  Montgomery,  Del- 
aware, Chester  and  Bucks  counties  and  had  a  wire  from  Lans- 
dale  to  City  Line  as  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  of  Philadelphia 
had  control  of  that  city.  The  line  from  Doylestown  to  Lansdale 
was  built  in  1880  and  was  owned  by  the  Delaware  &  Atlantic 
Company.  Mr.  Westbrook  was  the  superintendent  and  there  were 
seven  subscribers  who  had  phones  in  their  houses,  four  of  whom 
were  Alfred  Fackenthal,  Wallace  Dungan,  William  Vaux  and 
the  Intelligencer  Company.  The  first  exchange  was  placed 
temporarily  in  Dr.  Harvey's  drug  store,  which  stood  on  Main 
street,  where  the  Hart  building  now  stands.  John  B.  Livezey 
was  the  operator.  There  was  some  rivalry  between  the  Paschall 
Brothers  who  hoped  to  have  it  in  the  Intelligencer  office  and 
Thomas  Walton  who  wanted  it  in  his  drug  store  on  South  Main 
street.  It  was  finally  decided  in  favor  of  Mr.  Walton  and  the  ex- 
change was  built  in  the  little  alcove  in  the  rear  of  his  store. 
Mrs.  Sarah  Walton  was  the  operator  from  1880  to  1902  during 
which  time  the  switchboard  was  enlarged  and  improved  three 
times.  She  was  the  first  woman  to  talk  between  Doylestown  and 
Philadelphia  over  a  metallic  circuit.  A  single  wire  of  galvanized 
iron,  which  was  a  poor  conductor,  was  used  until  1890  and  while 
it  was  possible  to  talk  direct  to  Philadelphia  it  was  not  always  or 
often  satisfactory.  It  generally  happened  that  Mrs.  Walton  came 
to  the  rescue  and  finished  the  message.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  first  messages  were  relayed  to  Philadelphia.  A.  B.  Hennessy, 
the  present  superintendent  in  Doylestown,  denies  this,  but  he  be- 
lieves Lansdale  and  other  operators  may  have  helped  out  by  re- 
peating certain  words  that  did  not  carry  well  on  bad  days. 


410  PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    l) 

\\'hen  any  one  went  to  a  country  store  to  phone,  the  farmers, 
standing  around  the  stove  would  rush  out  and  hold  their  horses 
which  became  badly  frightened  at  the  fearful  noise  made  by  the 
person  phoning ! 

With  few  phones  at  first  and  little  work  it  may  be  true  that 
exchange  girls  sometimes  listened  to  conversations.  A  man, 
telling  a  great  secret  to  a  friend  said — "Wait  a  minute,  I  think  the 
operator  is  listening."  The  phone  girl's  prompt  and  indignant 
answer  was — "Its  a  lie,  I  ain't." 

The  galvanized  iron  v.-ires  were  replaced  with  copper  wires  by 
a  gradual  process,  from  1890  to  1900,  after  which  time  wire 
thieves  would  cut  and  remove  miles  of  copper  wire  in  a  single 
night,  sell  it  to  junk  dealers  and  then  rest  for  months  in  Doyles- 
town  jail.  Grant  Christian,  who  furnished  some  of  the  above 
information,  had  charge  of  the  Bucks-Montgomery  county  lines 
at  that  time. 

Owing  to  the  rapid  growth  of  the  company  the  exchange  was 
moved  from  Mrs.  Walton's  to  rooms  over  Fretz's  livery  office  on 
State  street  in  1902  and  Miss  Mary  Walton  was  operator  with 
Miss  Reba  W'alton  as  assistant. 

In  1905  the  Delaware  &  Atlantic  Company  took  over  the  local 
Standard  Telephone  Company  and  in  1907  the  exchanges  were 
moved  to  the  present  building  on  Main  street  where  they  are  at 
present   (1921). 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1908  the  old  Delaware  &  Atlantic 
Company  was  absorbed  by  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  of 
Pennsylvania.  The  Pennsylvania  Telephone  Company  controlled 
the  middle  district  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  western  part  of  the 
state  was  known  as  The  Central  District  Printing  &  Telegraph 
Company.  These  were  both  taken  over  by  the  Bell  Company  the 
same  year.  The  old  wall-boxes,  with  cranks  that  had  to  be 
turned,  to  ring  up  central,  were  replaced  with  desk  phones,  and 
canvasers  made  us  take  one  whether  we  would  or  not.  The 
lines  were  so  improved  that  conversation  today  is,  in  most  cases 
very  clear  and  pleasant  although  there  are  some  who  seem  to  be 
talking  from  the  bottom  of  a  well.  Some  who,  when  met  face 
to  face,  seem  pleasant  and  agreeable,  assume  an  afifected  or 
gloomy,  despondent  tone  on  the  phone  that  suggests  terrible 
disasters,    funerals,    and    ambulance    excursions.      Others    turn. 


PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    2)  411 

their  back  to  the  phone  and  walk  away  as  far  as  the  cord  allows. 
One  of  the  latter  type  phoned  a  business  house  an  order  which, 
although  repeated  three  times,  was  not  understood.  At  last  the 
customer  becoming  angry  said,  "Oh  Hell,"  in  a  clear  tone,  and 
was  then  informed  if  he  would  finish  the  message  in  the  same 
tone  and  position,  the  message  would  be  understood,  which  he 
did  without  any  more  trouble. 

According  to  the  kind  information  of  Miss  Margaret  Hig- 
gins  of  Doylestown,  the  local  Standard  Telephone  Company  men- 
tioned above  started  in  Doylestown  in  1900.  The  man  in  charge 
operated  the  board  and  taught  Miss  Higgins  who  became  first 
operator  in  1901.  There  were  40  phones  that  year  and  in  1903 
Miss  Edith  Atler  was  made  assistant  operator.  William  Hilde- 
brand  was  the  first  "trouble  man"  and  Elmer  Garis  the  first  night 
operator.  The  exchange  was  always  in  Magills  stone-house  at 
the  corner  of  Garden  alley  and  Broad  street.  When  the  com- 
pany was  sold  by  the  sheriff  in  1905  it  was  bought  by  the  Dela- 
ware &  Atlantic  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company  and  the  ex- 
change, which  then  had  140  phones,  was  moved  to  the  Fretz 
building.  Miss  Higgins  was  operator  from  the  time  it  was  built 
until  it  was  sold  and  was  and  still  is  the  most  obliging  operator 
Doylestown  has  ever  known. 

For  the  above  information  the  writer  is  indebted  to  Mrs. 
Sarah  A.  Walton,  Mr.  Frederic  W.  Walton,  Miss  Margaret  M. 
Higgins  and  especially  to  Mr.  A.  B.  Hennessy,  manager  of  the 
Bell  Company  at  Doylestown. 

Bicycles.  The  velocipede,  with  two  heavy  wooden  wheels  and 
iron  tires,  in  use  about  1869  on  the  fine  asphalt  streets  of  Boston 
and  Paris,  was  not  adapted  to  the  cobbled  streets  of  Philadelphia, 
or  the  rough  country  roads  and  was  little  used  in  Bucks  county. 
Dr.  Mercer  had  a  toy  affair,  in  Doylestown,  in  1869,  and  later 
used  a  larger  one  in  Paris  in  1870.  The  pedals  were  connected 
with  the  axle  of  the  front  wheel  and  one  revolution  of  the  pedal 
meant  one  revolution  of  the  wheel.  The  high  wheeled  bicycle 
was  in  use  at  the  same  time.  It  had  solid  rubber  tires,  wire 
spokes,  and  the  pedals  were  connected  with  the  axle  of  the  front 
wheel,  but  continual  jolting  over  the  rough  country  roads  and 
the  danger  of  tilting  forward  and  being  thrown  going  down  hill 


412  PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    2) 

prevented  its  being  used  to  any  great  extent  in  Bucks  county. 
Robert  L.  Cope,  a  lawyer  of  Doylestown,  had  one  about  1867,  the 
Lewis  brothers  of  Bridge  Valley,  occasionally  rode  through  Cen- 
treville  in  1884  and  Dr.  Howard  Randall  of  Mechanicsville,  owned 
one  for  several  years. 

It  has  always  been  a  difficult  matter  to  tell  just  what  happens 
when  you  walk  on  a  sleeping  dog  in  the  dark  and  when  a  young 
man  on  a  high  bicycle,  tried  to  run  over  a  sleeping  dog,  in  front 
of  Righters  Hotel  at  Centreville,  one  hot  August  day,  the  men 
"resting"  at  the  hotel  could  agree  on  only  one  thing,  which  was, 
that  all  the  sticking  plaster  in  a  nearby  store  was  quickly  used 
vip — but  not  on  the  dog. 

In  August,  1891,  a  lot  of  boys  were  swimming  in  Stover's  mill- 
dam  below  Mechanics  Valley.  Christopher  Holcomb,  Postal 
Telegraph  operator  at  Doylestown,  rode  down  to  the  dam  on  a 
new  bicycle.  No  one  there  had  ever  seen  one  like  it.  The  low 
wheels  had  wooden  spokes,  heavy  wooden  rims  and  solid  rubber 
tires.  The  pedals,  attached  to  the  frame  half  way  between  the 
two  wheels,  and  not  to  hub  of  the  front  wheel,  as  heretofore, 
had  a  large  sprocket  wheel  with  a  chain  running  to  the  sprocket 
hub  of  the  rear  wheel,  thus  giving  a  chain  drive.  One  revolution 
of  the  pedals  meant  three  revolutions  of  the  wheel,  or  greater 
speed  with  less  effort.  Mr.  Holcomb's  wheel  was  probably  the 
first  of  its  kind  in  Doylestown.  In  1892  a  good  many  were  in 
use,  and  ladies  wheels  began  to  appear  in  1893.  Mrs.  George 
Brown  owned  the  first  one  in  Buckingham.  In  that  year  the 
spokes  were  made  of  wire  and  the  solid  rubber  tires  were  re- 
placed with  inflated  ones,  first  on  steel  rims  and  later,  very  light, 
bent  wooden  rims  were  made  to  hold  the  wide  tires.  The  frames 
were  lighter  and  mud-guards  and  brakes  were  added.  The  Co- 
lumbia bicycle,  costing  one  hundred  dollars,  was  the  best  on  the 
market,  and  Dr.  Mercer  uses  one  today  (1921),  that  he  bought  in 
1895.  The  following  year,  1896,  bicycle  craze  started,  and  while 
there  may  have  been  several  crazes  before  and  a  good  many  since, 
none  of  them  gripped  the  people  like  that  of  the  bicycle.  Nearly 
every  man,  young  or  old,  every  boy,  and  most  women,  bought  a 
wheel.  The  country  roads  were  lined  with  them ;  bells  tinkled, 
lights  flashed,  merchants  put  up  racks  along  the  curb  in  front  of 
their  shops  to  hold  their  customers  wheels,  repair  shops  sprang 


PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    2)  413 

up  in  every  town  or  village  and  along  country  roads.  The 
League  of  American  Wheelmen  was  formed,  with  thousands  of 
members  in  every  state  and  in  Canada  and  a  weekly  journal  was 
published.  Societies  were  formed  in  cities  and  villages,  each  hav- 
ing their  own  colors  or  streamers  fastened  to  the  handle-bars, 
"century"  runs  were  made  on  Sundays  and  holidays,  and  tracks 
were  built  for  prize  races.  Men  wore  tight  fitting  knee  breeches, 
double  boarded  caps  and  rode  without  coats,  but  by  1897  the 
handsomer  knickerbochers,  woolen  stockings  with  gay  colored 
tops,  Norfolk  coats  and  decent  looking  caps  were  in  use  and  were 
not  given  up  for  some  years  after  the  bicycle  craze  died  out. 
Women  wore  very  full  skirts,  sometimes  divided  ones,  with 
shot  or  lead  sewed  in  the  hem  to  keep  them  down  though  they 
never  blew  as  short  as  they  are  worn  today. 

Toll  was  collected  at  the  turnpike  gates  and  the  \vheelman  was 
a  constant  worry  to  the  gate-keeper  because  he  made  no  noise 
and  often  rushed  through  without  paying  toll.  Very  few  tan- 
dems were  made  at  any  time.  The  craze  continued  for  several 
years  or  until  about  1902  when  it  died  suddenly.  A  few  bi- 
cycles could  then  be  seen  but  these  were  used  by  workmen  going 
to  or  from  work,  or  by  boys  just  old  enough  to  ride  for  the  first 
time.  The  doctors  declared  every  American  would  die  of  a  weak 
heart  or  tuberculosus  through  leaning  low  over  the  handle  bars, 
but  neither  this,  nor  the  motorcycle,  nor  the  automobile,  but  the 
paralysis  and  sudden  death  of  a  fad  killed  the  bicycle,  although 
city  streets  and  country  roads  are  better  today  than  they  ever 
were  before. 

There  are  more  bicycles  in  use  today  (1921)  than  there  were 
ten  years  ago.     They  are  very  much  used  in  Holland  today. 

( Information  of  Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer  and  personal  observa- 
tion.) 

Creameries.  Before  1878  every  farm  had  a  springhouse,  a 
cave  or  a  cool  milk  cellar  for  keeping  milk  and  cream  until  the 
latter  was  made  up  into  butter,  which  was  then  sold  in  Pliila- 
delphia  or  small  towns,  by  marketmen.  After  the  railroad  was 
built  into  Doylestown  and  Bethlehem  in  1856,  some  farmers 
sent  their  milk  to  Philadelphia  dealers,  who.  after  a  time,  became 
dishonest  and  delayed  payments  so  long  in  order  to  cheat  the 


414  PASSING   EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    2) 

farmer,  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  dissatisfaction  and  many 
farmers  returned  to  butter  making.  But  this  aiTected  only  a  few 
farms  close  to  the  railroad  and  so  butter  making  continued  on 
almost  every  farm  until  1878.  In  the  summer  of  that  year  a 
man  from  New  York  explained  to  farmers  in  Pineville  how 
cream  could  be  separated  from  new  milk  and  made  into  butter 
the  same  day.  A  dairymens'  association  was  immediately  formed, 
stock  was  sold  and  the  first  creamery  in  Bucks  county  built  the 
same  year.  Each  farmer  guaranteed  to  furnish  a  certain  num- 
ber of  quarts  of  milk  every  day  and  in  order  to  do  this  they 
bought  many  more  cows,  thus  doubling  the  number  of  quarts 
guaranteed.  Nearly  all  the  farmers  nearby  hauled  their  milk  to, 
the  creamery  and  it  was  a  success  from  the  start.  The  milk,  after 
being  weighed  in  a  can  or  tank,  was  allowed  to  run  into  a  large 
vat  which  had  several  pipes  running  through  it  so  that  ice  water 
passing  through  these  pipes  cooled  the  milk  quickly  and  caused 
the  cream  to  rise  to  the  top  in  a  short  time  which  was  immediately 
made  up  into  sweet  butter.  Farmers  had  been  making  butter 
from  sour  cream  once  a  week  and  it  was  sometimes  sour  or 
strong  and  little  bone  paddles,  like  salt  spoons,  were  kept  by 
some  market  men  so  customers  could  sample  or  taste  a  pat  of 
butter  before  buying.  One  of  these,  used  by  Rebecca  Swain, 
was  owned  by  the  writer  several  years  ago.  The  fresh,  sweet 
creamery  butter  was  considered  much  better  and  finally  crowded 
out  the  home-made  butter.  The  time  was  ripe  for  the  change 
and  dairymens'  associations  were  formed  all  over  the  county 
and  committees  were  appointed  to  visit  Pineville  creamery  and 
learn  how  the  work  was  done.  A  creamery  was  built  in  Dublin 
the  same  year  (1878).  One  in  Quakertown  in  1879,  Cold  Spring 
near  Mechanicsville,  in  July,  1880,  Pine  Run  a  month  later,  fol- 
lowed by  Walnut  Lawn  at  Bean  Postoffice,  and  another  at  Church 
Hill  the  same  year  and  New  Britain  in  1881,  so  that  by  1883 
there  were  at  least  sixteen  creameries  in  the  county.  That  the 
movement  was  popular  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Farmers  who 
had  six  or  eight  cows  before  could  now  keep  eighteen  or  twenty. 
In  Battles  History  of  Bucks  County,  published  in  1887,  every 
manager  of  a  creamery  is  mentioned  along  with  doctors,  lawyers 
and  ministers.  Butter  was  made  and  shipped  to  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  markets  and  commission  men  hauled  it  to   Phila- 


PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  2)  415 

delphia  and  sold  it  from  door  to  door,  and  the  bone  tester  was  no 
longer  used.  According  to  Noah  L.  Clark  of  Doylestown,  who 
furnished  the  above  information,  cheese  was  also  made  at  all  the 
creameries  and  as  it  took  three  months  to  make  and  properly 
cure  or  dry  a  cheese  ready  for  market  and,  as  some  creameries 
like  "\\'alnut  Lawn"  at  Bean,  made  fifty  to  sixty  a  week,  large 
high  buildings  were  necessary,  the  older  ones  being  three  stories 
high  with  cheese-rooms  on  the  second  and  third  floors.  The  first 
cheeses  were  made  entirely  of  cream  but  proved  too  rich  and 
would  not  hold  together  but  crumbled  and  fell.  Milk  with  some 
cream  in  it  was  then  used  and  made  a  good  cheese.  This  was 
continued  for  several  years  and  finally  given  up  about  1885  al- 
though Mr.  Clark  made  a  few  at  "Cold  Spring"  creamery 
for  nearby  farmers  until  1890.  At  the  present  time  none  are 
made  at  any  of  the  creameries.  The  round  wooden  cheese-boxes 
were  made  at  factories  in  Perkasie  and  Quakertown. 

In  1884  revolving  cream  separators  were  put  in  at  Pineville 
creamery  and  used  there  one  year  before  the  other  creameries 
tried  them.  Farmers  were  paid  for  quantity  as  there  was  no  way 
of  testing  the  quality  of  the  milk.  A  good  deal  of  it  was  badly 
watered  and  some  days  a  large  vat  of  milk  would  produce  but 
little  cream.  The  superintendent  knew  the  cause  but  could  not 
correct  it  because  he  did  not  know  who  brought  w^atered  milk. 
In  1889  Mr.  Clarke  bought  a  Babcock  tester  shown  at  a  conven- 
tion in  the  courthouse,  Doylestown,  and  proceeded  to  test  all  the 
milk.  Notice  was  very  kindly  given  in  advance  that  all  the  milk 
would  be  tested  and  the  immediate  result  was  that  the  quantity 
brought  by  certain  farmers  was  very  much  reduced  while  the 
amount  of  butter  produced  was  greatly  increased  as  they  were 
afraid  to  water  their  milk  or  skim  the  cream  for  home  use.  This 
tester  was  the  first  used  and  after  its  introduction,  farmers  were 
paid  for  butter  fat  and  not  for  volume  of  milk.  1886  the  large 
twenty-six  inch  separators  were  replaced  by  little  ones  that  made 
six  thousand  revolutions  per  minute,  removing  every  particle  of 
cream  so  that  cheese  made  from  milk  was  hard  and  tough  and 
could  no  longer  be  sold. 

Each  creamery  had  a  cistern  into  which  the  whey  from  the 
cheese  vats  flowed.  When  cheese  was  no  longer  made  the  milk 
was  either  worked  up  into  cottage  cheese,  packed  in  barrels  and 


416  PASSING    EVENTS    (PAPER    NO.    2) 

sent  to  city  markets  or  ran  into  the  cistern  where  farmers  pumped 
it  into  their  empty  milk  cans,  hauled  it  home,  and  used  it  for 
feeding  pigs. 

After  the  creameries  started  there  was  a  shortage  of  milk  in 
Philadelphia  and  the  dishonest  dealers  were  either  driven  out 
of  business  or  compelled  to  make  monthly  payments.  Dr.  Mercer 
tells  a  story  of  his  father,  William  R.  Mercer,  going  to  Phila- 
delphia to  get  a  lawyer  to  collect  a  long  over-due  milk  bill.  The 
lawyer  went  to  see  the  dealer  and  in  a  short  time  returned  and 
explained  to  Mr.  Mercer,  who  had  waited  in  the  office,  how  the 
dealer  had  tried  to  kick  him  down  the  stairs  whereupon  Mr. 
Mercer  said,  "Drop  the  suit,"  which  the  lawyer  did. 

Later,  better  prices  were  offered  and  payments  were  made 
promptly  so  that  farmers  again  shipped  their  milk  to  towni  and 
in  a  few  years  some  creameries  had  a  hard  struggle  and  were 
finally  obliged  to  close.  Hulmeville  creamery  was  sold  by  the 
sheriff  April  10,  1886.  while  Quakertown  creamery,  built  in 
1879  at  a  cost  of  $7000.00,  was  sold  in  March,  1886,  for  $2700.00 
to  Charles  Hixon,  and  Lewis  R.  Praul,  failing  to  sell  his  cream- 
ery building  at  Richboro,  had  it  torn  down  in  April,  1886,  using 
the  lumber  for  building  two  dwelling  houses. 

On  account  of  the  rapid  growth  of  Philadelphia  and  surround- 
ing towns  there  was  a  greater  demand  for  milk  about  1900.  The 
price  advanced  so  that  it  was  much  more  profitable  to  ship  to 
town  than  to  sell  to  the  creameries,  and  only  those  farthest  re- 
moved from  train  or  trolley,  as  at  Dublin,  Wormansville,  Deep 
Run,  etc.,  continued  to  run  to  the  present  time   (1921). 

Some  creameries  made  icecream,  as  at  New  Britain  and  Buck- 
ingham in  1887  but  this  was  done  only  in  summer  and  not  tmtil 
about  1900  was  it  possible  to  buy  it  throughout  the  year.  This 
was  made  in  open  cans  by  stirring  it  with  a  stick  or  paddle  until 
it  hardened  or  froze.  No  freezers,  with  revolving  cans  or  dash- 
ers, closed  at  the  top  were  in  use  at  that  time.  In  August,  1886, 
large  cans  of  cream  were  brought  to  Solebury  Deer-Park  where 
Buckingham  Friends  school  had  a  picnic.  Men  stirred  the  cream 
in  open  cans  for  two  hours  but  it  would  not  freeze  and  was 
served  in  cups  to  the  impatient  children  of  whom  the  writer  was 
one,  who  got  icecream  about  once  a  year  at  a  Sunday  school  picnic. 

About  the  last  of  May  each  year  almost  every  baker  opened 


PASSING  EVENTS  (PAPER  NO.  2)  417 

his  parlor  and  sold  icecream  by  the  plate  until  cold  weather  came 
on  and  not  until  about  1905  was  it  sold  in  drug  stores,  restau- 
rants, etc.  Mr.  Asher  Lear  built  several  small  creameries  near 
Doylestown  after  1900  but  these  were  not  for  butter  making  but 
for  supplying  cream  to  icecream  makers. 

The  patented  "Little  Gem"  icecream  freezer  for  two,  three  or 
six  quarts  came  into  use  in  1893.  It  had  a  central  paddle  or 
dasher  in  a  closed  revolving  can  and  farmers  could  make  their 
icecream  at  home.  The  first  icecream  cones  seen  by  the  writer 
were  made  by  a  Japanese  at  the  St.  Louis  Fair,  in  1904,  and  at 
Atlantic  City  two  years  later. 

When  the  farmer  stopped  making  butter  at  home  about  1880 
the  springhouses  fell  to  ruin  and  some  have  entirely  disappeared. 
The  same  fate  awaits  or  has  already  overtaken  some  of  the 
creameries. 

Waterbacks.  The  early  cook  stoves  were  without  waterbacks 
or  boxes  for  heating  water  and  although  a  house  might  have  a 
tank,  waterpipes  and  bath-room,  hot  water  must  be  carried  from 
the  kitchen.  In  1870  William  Blackfan,  living  on  the  Blackfan 
farm  in  Solebury  township,  had  a  large  copper  tank  or  boiler 
made  which  was  placed  upon  the  back  lids  of  the  cook  stove  in 
the  kitchen.  A  pipe  from  the  house  tank  supplied  cold  water 
while  another  pipe  carried  hot  water  to  the  spigots.  Nothing  but 
a  very  hot  fire,  which  was  not  always  necessary  for  cooking, 
would  heat  the  water  and  the  thing  was  not  a  success.  After 
sitting  back  of  the  stove  for  an  hour  one  cold  morning  Mr. 
Blackfan  told  his  son,  Edward,  he  believed  he  had  worked  out 
a  plan  so  that  hot  water  could  be  had  at  all  times.  He  immedi- 
ately drove  down  to  New  Hope  and  had  a  one  inch  pipe  bent  in 
the  shape  of  the  letter  U  with  the  two  ends  bent  at  right  angles 
to  the  U  and  parallel  with  one  another.  The  U  was  placed  in 
the  firebox,  against  the  back  bricks,  so  the  hot  coals  lay  against 
it  and  the  two  ends  ran  back  over  the  oven  and  out  through  holes 
made  in  the  back  of  the  stove.  One  end  of  the  new  pipe  entered 
the  copper  boiler  while  the  other  connected  with  the  pipe  from 
the  house  tank  so  that  cold  water  from  the  latter,  running  into 
the  U  was  heated  and  stored  in  the  copper  boiler  and  the  water 
was  always  hot. 


418  OLD    HOUSEHOLD    INDUSTRIES 

The  stove  was  a  William  Spear  cook-stove  and  the  experi- 
ment was  made  in  the  winter  of  1871  or  about  that  time.  Mr. 
Blackfan  was  so  pleased  with  the  success  of  this,  the  first  water- 
back,  that  he  told  Mr.  Spear  about  it  and  asked  him  to  come 
and  inspect  it  which  he  did  a  few  weeks  later  and  a  short  time 
after  that  Mr.  Spear  turned  out  a  new  cook-stove  with  a  square, 
iron,  hot  water  back,  though  Mr.  Blackfan  got  no  credit  or  re- 
muneration. 

Information  of  Mr.  Edward  H.  Blackfan,  New  Hope,  Pa., 
October,  1921. 


Old  Household  Industries. 

BY   MRS.   FLORENCE   KIRK   BLACKFAN,   NEW   HOPE,   PA. 
(Friends  Meeting  House,   Newtown,   June   3,   1922.) 

TO  many  people  ancient  processes  sound  so  tiresome  that 
they  seem  prosy,  but  if  one  has  a  spark  of  sentimentality 
which  endears  them  to  those  who  have  gone  before,  it  be- 
comes a  constant  pleasure  to  recall  the  ways  and  means  our 
ancestors  used  in  their  daily  routines.  If  some  of  us  had  kept  a 
pencil  and  paper  near  when  our  grandmothers  were  working, 
or  later,  when  their  active  work  was  done,  and  as  they  sat  and 
told  of  the  things  they  did  and  the  way  they  did  them,  there  would 
be  scarcely  one  of  us  but  who  might  have  made  an  historical 
paper  most  interesting  and  valuable. 

Every-so-often  we  get  a  severe  shock  when  the  arts  and  crafts 
workers  hand  out  something  modern  by  the  dozen  to  sell,  for  in- 
stance modern  coverlids  in  antique  designs,  when  we  may  have 
one  that  has  been  cherished  for  generations.  The  shock  came 
to  the  writer  a  few  weeks  ago,  when  the  proprietress  of  a  gift 
shop  displayed  a  very  beautiful  blue  and  white  modern-made 
coverlid  almost  identical  to  one  my  mother  had  presented  to  her 
thirty  years  ago.  The  latter  coverlid  was  made  for  an  older 
sister  of  the  late  Moses  Eastburn  of  Solebury  township  in  1810. 
The  thread  was  spun  by  the  young  woman  who  was  soon  to  be- 
come a  bride,  and  probably  was  not  the  only  spread  she  had.  be- 


OLD    HOUSEHOLD    INDUSTRIES  419 

cause  this  particular  one  had  never  been  used  when  it  was  given 
to  my  mother.  The  modern  one  resembled  it  closely,  but  upon 
examination  the  blue  wasn't  the  same  blue,  and  the  white  wasn't 
the  pure  unadulterated  white  that  had  been  bleached  on  Sole- 
bury's  meadows,  and  the  texture  of  the  weaving  was  less  firm 
and  doubless  less  durable  than  the  weaving  on  that  one  of  one 
hundred  and  twelve  years  old.  Although  it  had  never  been  used 
or  ripped  in  two  parts  to  make  curtains,  I  think  I  can  see  a  tall 
graceful  form  produce  it  when  callers  came  to  look  over  the 
brides  "out  set". 

Maybe  these  callers  were  not  "callers"  at  all,  but  visitors  who 
drove  up  to  the  front  door  soon  after  one  o'clock  standard  time 
to  spend  the  afternoon  and  stay  to  supper.  Maybe  all  the  bread 
had  been  eaten  at  dinner  time  at  the  hostess'  house.  The  store 
was  three  and  a  half  miles  away  and  of  course  they  couldn't  have 
bought  bread  at  the  store.  But  what  of  that !  A  crock  of  foam- 
ing home-made  yeast  was  down  cellar  always.  There  was  plenty 
of  milk  there  too.  So  what  a  slight  bit  of  work  it  was  to  mix  up 
a  large  crock  of  buckwheat  cakes,  said  buckwheat  raised  at  home. 
By  supper  time,  about  five  o'clock  (not  eight  or  eight-thirty), 
everybody  sat  down  to  a  most  delectable  repast. 

With  the  buckwheats  some  would  prefer  honey  and  butter, 
some  the  good  old-fashioned  New  Orleans  molasses,  which 
where  there  was  a  large  family  was  bought  by  the  barrel.  The 
meat  for  the  meal  was  not  lobster  cutlet  or  some  other  modern 
delicacy,  but  it  might  have  been  venison  frizzled  with  cream,  or 
home-dried  beef  with  cream,  gravy  or  frizzled  liver.  The  writer 
knows  only  a  few  housekeepers  who  continue  to  cure  beef  liver 
to  be  used  in  much  the  same  way  as  dried  beef.  This  is  the  way 
it  was  done.  The  liver  from  a  heavy  beef  freshly  killed  was  cut 
into  two  or  three  pieces,  placed  in  a  vessel  and  covered  with  a 
brine  made  of  water  in  which  had  been  dissolved  enough  com- 
mon salt  to  float  an  egg.  A  pinch  of  saltpetre  was  added.  The 
liver  was  allowed  to  remain  in  the  brine  for  about  two  weeks. 
It  was  then  taken  out  and  each  piece  hung  by  a  string  to  the 
kitchen  ceiling,  until  it  dried  so  there  was  no  danger  of  its  mold- 
ing. This  process  was  accomplished  during  the  winter  months. 
When  it  had  dried  it  was  wrapped  securely  in  newspaper  and 
hung  in  the  cellarwav  or  closet  where  there  was  little  heat  and 


420  OLD    HOUSEHOLD    INDUSTl^IES 

yet  no  danger  of  freezing.  It  was  soon  ready  to  be  very  thinly 
sliced,  frizzled  in  butter  with  cream  added,  and  was  a  most 
delicious  and  tasty  dish.  The  frizzled  liver  was  for  generations 
a  favorite  Firstday  morning  dish  and  was  looked  forward  to  as 
a  delicacy,  probably  because  of  its  unusual  flavor  and  also  be- 
cause there  was  never  such  an  abundance  of  it  that  the  family 
grew  tired  of  it. 

Another  tasty  addition  to  our  grandmother's  meal  was  "Dutch 
cheese".  The  writer  knows  of  no  reason  why  it  was  called 
"Dutch  cheese".  To  some  rich  cottage  cheese  grandmother  would 
add  enough  finely  cut  sage  leaves,  or  rubbed  dry  ones,  to  give  the 
mass  a  pleasant  flavor,  then  she  made  it  into  balls  about  the  size 
of  an  ordinary  orange.  She  put  this  away  on  the  cellar  shelf 
until  it  ripened  or  aged,  which  required  about  a  week.  By  this 
time  a  skin  would  form  on  the  outside  and  when  this  was  cut  ofif 
there  was  left  a  so-called  Dutch  cheese  which  was  most  palatable. 
Very  often  this  was  served  with  the  dessert,  especially  if  the 
dessert  were  a  juicy  rhubard,  cherry  or  peach  pie. 

A  dessert  which  was  considered  very  fine  in  grandmother's 
day  was  "bread-dumplings".  This  process  was  told  me  by  Mrs. 
Isaac  Van  Pelt  of  New  Hope,  whose  mother  (the  wife  of  the 
late  John  A.  Beaumont  of  Upper  Makefield  township),  was  a 
noted  cook.  The  bread-dumplings  were  made  in  their  family 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  were  very  generally  used  by 
that  generation.  That  was  before  the  day  when  boiled  dough 
was  considered  indigestible,  and  people  thrived  upon  it.  Prob- 
ably the  reason  it  is  indigestible  to  some  is  because  cooks  of  the 
present  day  take  too  short  a  time  to  cook  it.  Bread  dough  ready 
for  moulding  into  loaves  was  rolled  with  a  rolling  pin,  and  cut 
into  shape  with  a  cake  cutter  at  the  time  the  bread  loaves  were 
moulded.  The  pieces  were  put  on  a  greased  dish  and  set  away 
until  about  an  hour  and  a  half  before  dinner  time.  Then  they 
were  dropped  into  a  large  boiler  of  boiling  water,  slightly  salted, 
in  which  they  would  float  and  boil  for  at  least  an  hour  and  a 
half.  The  finished  product  was  a  dumpling,  tender  and  most 
delicious. 

These  were  usually  eaten  with  the  sugar  remaining  in  the 
bottom  of  a  New  Orleans  molasses  barrel,  which  served  as  a 
sauce.     Some  people  preferred  to  eat  them  with  the  sauce  they 


OLD    HOUSEHOLD    INDUSTRIES  421 

used  on  apple  or  peach  dumplings  i.  e.  one-half  New  Orleans 
molasses  and  one-half  thick  sour  cream  blended.  Very  good  in- 
deed you  will  say,  if  you  try  it,  even  in  this  day.  The  brass 
and  copper  kettles  in  which  a  great  deal  of  food  was  cooked 
long  ago  meant  a  lot  of  labor  to  keep  them  in  good  condition. 
Both  before  and  after  using  they  usually  needed  cleaning.  A 
favorite  process  was  to  pour  a  quantity  of  vinegar  into  the 
vessel,  run  to  the  edge  of  the  creek  if  such  a  thing  were  near, 
and  use  a  piece  of  the  moist  sod  found  there  and  the  sod  and 
vinegar  combined,  served  as  an  excellent  scouring  soap.  The 
damage  it  did  to  hands  and  fingers  were  never  mentioned,  may- 
be, never  thought  of.  My  mother's  kitchen  had,  had  yours?, 
about  as  neat  a  floor  covering  on  it  as  you  would  want,  and  such 
as  were  generally  used  after  the  spotless  bare  floors  were  sup- 
planted by  oilcloth  covered  ones.  Strips  of  rag  carpet  were 
sewn  to  fit  the  floor,  which  was  then  stretched  upon  the  barn 
floor,  usually  after  all  the  spring  threshing  was  done,  and  before 
the  barn  was  needed  to  store  hay  in.  The  carpet  was  first  given 
a  coat  of  cooked  clear  starch  which  was  applied  with  a  paint 
brush  and  allowed  to  dry.  Then  it  was  given  three  of  four  coats 
of  paint.  The  most  favored  color  seemed  to  be  that  with  a  good 
deal  of  yellow  ochre.  When  sufftcient  paint  was  put  on,  various 
decorations  were  put  on  the  plain  surface.  My  mother  used  two 
squares  of  heavy  cardboard,  each  about  one  foot  square  in  both 
of  which  had  been  cut  out  a  figure  the  shape  of  a  maple  leaf. 
With  the  cardboard  squares  placed  upon  the  painted  surface  she 
would  paint  alternate  leaves  of  black  and  green.  The  result, 
you  can  easily  imagine.  It  was  neat,  pretty,  and  durable,  and  in 
addition  the  old  rag  carpet  was  put  to  a  use  to  last  almost  in- 
definitely because  the  painting  operation  was  replaced  about 
once  every  two  years.  The  work  of  keeping  it  clean  would  dis- 
may most  of  present-day  housekeepers.  It  was  a  part  of  each 
morning's  work  to  wash  it  with  clear  water  and  once  a  week  to 
add  some  borax  to  the  water — never  soap.  If  the  men  came  in 
at  noon  with  unusually  dirty  boots  the  operation  of  cleaning  was 
repeated  in  the  afternoon. 

Was  it  not  making  use  of  everything  at  hand  that  was  the 
keynote  of  thrift  one  hundred  years  ago  instead  of  going  out  to 
buy  every  single  thing  one  needed?     In  the  thrifty  families  of 


422  OLD    HOUSEHOLD    INDUSTRIES 

that  day  the  worn  bandana  handkerchiefs  of  silk  were  torn  into 
narrow  strips  and  plaited,  to  be  used  later  as  drawing  strings 
for  bags  used  for  various  things.  The  writer  still  has  some  of 
the  plaited  string. 

Our  grandmothers  made  a  delicious  confection,  called  "peach 
leather".  When  the  soft  peaches  were  not  all  needed  for  pies 
or  sauce,  they  were  sliced,  and  mashed  into  a  thin  layer  on  a 
plate  and  put  out  in  the  sun  to  partially  drv*.  AMien  the  juice 
had  thickened  and  made  the  fruit  so  that  it  would  keep  it's 
shape,  and  could  be  lifted  off  the  plate  it  was  put  into  a  stone 
crock  on  top  of  a  layer  of  crushed  sugar,  and  more  sugar  put 
over  it.  In  a  day  or  two  perhaps  another  layer  or  two  would 
be  added,  each  time  putting  a  generous  layer  of  sugar  between 
each  layer  of  peaches.  This  tasted  pretty  good,  when  in  the 
winter  a  layer  would  be  brought  out  and  passed  around  to  be 
eaten.  The  layer  of  fruit  was  made  quite  thin,  and  before 
passing  it  was  pulled  into  pieces.  Of  course,  it  was  something 
like  the  conserved  fruit  of  today,  only  to  my  recollection  it  was 
much  better.  Whether  it  would  taste  the  same  if  we  would  take 
the  time  and  pains  to  make  some  like  it  now,  I  cannot  say.  The 
richly  flavored  cherries  of  that  day  which  now  are  almost  ex- 
tinct, were  treated  in  somewhat  the  same  way.  except  they  were 
not  mashed.  They  were  left  whole  as  possible  after  pitting,  and 
when  dried,  sprinkled  liberally  with  crushed  sugar.  They  were 
put  away  to  be  eaten  in  winter  when  fresh  fruit  was  less  bounti- 
ful and  less  easily  obtained  than  now. 

A  close  second  to  the  lavender  or  rose  leaves  which  were 
cured  and  put  away  among  the  table  and  bed  linens  in  the  chests- 
of-drawers.  was  the  dried  white  sweet  clover  blossoms.  Since 
there  are  less  cows  pastured  by  the  roadsides  this  variety  grows 
in  great  abundance,  and  by  cutting  the  long  slender  blooms  and 
drying  them  on  the  garret  floor  spread  on  papers,  one  may  revive, 
in  ones  own  home,  the  delightful,  delicate  perfume  which  per- 
meated every  nook  and  corner  in  our  grandmothers  houses. 

There  were  one  hundred  years  ago,  as  now,  many  things  done 
that  seem  too  trivial  to  tell,  and  yet  they  will  surely  be  forgotten 
unless  some  one  writes  about  them  for  their  preservation. 


The  Wire  Fabric  Industry  in  America. 

BY   LOUIS   C.   BEERS,   TRENTON,    N.    J. 
(Friends  Meeting  House,   Newtown,   June   3,    1922.) 

IN  this  paper  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  give  a  connected 
history  of  the  wire  fabric  industry  but  simply  to  record  some 
facts  about  the  industry  prior  to  the  eighth  decade  of  the  last 
century.  Since  that  time  there  has  been  a  remarkable  develop- 
ment in  the  methods  of  manufacture,  variety  and  volume  of 
products  but  it  is  not  practicable  at  the  present  time  to  detail 
these  changes.  Wire  fabrics  include  "wire  cloth"  which  is  a 
term  applied  to  a  fabric  of  wire  made  with  square  or  rectangular 
meshes.  Embraced  in  this  group  are  insect-screen  cloth,  Four- 
drinier  cloth  used  in  paper  making,  and  fabrics  used  in  separ- 
ating, straining,  sifting,  screening,  grading,  reinforcing  and  other 
purposes.  A  large  quantity  is  sold  under  the  trade  name  of 
wire  lath  and  is  used  as  a  foundation  for  plaster  in  place  of  the 
common  wood  lath.  Cloth  ranges  from  one  inch  to  two  hundred 
and  fifty  meshes  per  inch.  Steel  and  iron,  copper  and  its  alloys 
are  commonly  used,  but  the  wire-cloth  is  made  of  other  metals. 

"Wire  screening"  refers  to  similar  material  made  of  heavy 
wire,  usually  with  large  holes  and  is  used  for  grading  coarse 
products  such  as  coal,  gravel  and  sand.  "Wire  work"  is  that  ma- 
terial made  with  square  or  diamond  openings  used  for  window 
guards,  railings,  partitions  and  baskets  and  "wire  netting"  is. 
that  fabric  made  with  hexagon  meshes  usually  galvanized,  such 
as  is- used  for  enclosures  for  birds  and  small  animals,  and  also 
for  light  fences. 

To  Pennsylvania  belongs  the  distinction  of  the  establishment 
of  the  industry  and  John  Sellers  was  undoubtedly  the  pioneer. 
His  descendants  and  relatives  conducted  a  wire  and  wire  products 
factory  for  over  a  century.  A  statement  of  Horace  Wells  Sellers 
of  Philadelphia,  a  descendant  of  Nathan  Sellers,  regarding  the  ac- 
tivities of  various  members  of  his  family  is  given  below : 

"John  Sellers  (1728-1804)  of  Darby  township,  near  Philadelphia,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  pioneer  in  this  field  so  far  as  the  art  in 
America   is   concerned. 


424  THE    WIRE    FABRIC    INDUSTRY    IX    AMERICA 

In  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  Philadelphia,  Sept.  3.  1767,  No.  2019, 
and  subsequent  issues  in  1768  and  1769,  you  will  find  his  business 
card.  In  referring  to  the  'wire  work  of  all  sorts'  and  the  rolling 
screens,  wire  bolts,  etc.,  manufactured,  he  states  that  'he  is  the  original 
inventor  and  institutor  of  that  branch  of  the  business  in  America'  and 
in  his  later  advertisements  (Pennsylvania  Gazette.  July  27.  1769),  he 
refers  to  'various  kinds  of  wire  work,  such  as  twilled  or  plain',  'short 
cloth  for  millers',   screens,   etc. 

John  Sellers,  inherited  from  his  father,  Samuel  Sellers.  Jr..  (1690- 
1773),  the  business  of  weaving  woolens,  etc.,  brought  from  England  in 
1682,  by  his  father  Samuel  Sellers,  Sr.,  (1655-1732).  It  appears  that 
even  in  his  father's  lifetime  John  Sellers  turned  his  attention  to  work- 
ing and  weaving  wire,  and  eventually  abandoned  the  making  of  worsted 
goods. 

He  was  widely  known  as  a  surveyor  and  on  his  large  estate  de- 
veloped a  number  of  industries,  flour  and  saw  mills,  tannery  and  grist- 
mills besides  the  tilt  mill  for  working  metal,  drawing  wire,  etc.  He 
was  one  of  the  original  members  of  the  American  Philosophical  So- 
ciety and  for  many  years  was  active  in  public  life  as  a  member  of  the 
Provincial  Assembly  and  after  the  Revolution,  was  a  member  of  the 
State  Senate.  His  eldest  son,  Nathan  Sellers  (1751-1830),  was  trained 
for  law  and  conveyancing,  but  turned  his  attention  to  his  father's  in- 
dustries and  especially  to  wire  working  in  which  he  was  assisted  by 
his  younger  brother,  Samuel  Sellers   (1753-1776). 

Nathan  Sellers  seems  to  have  given  his  personal  attention  to  the 
working  of  wire  for  making  paper  moulds,  and  while  he  was  in  active 
service  as  ensign  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  he  w^as  recalled  from 
military  duty  by  resolution  of  congress,  Aug.  26,  1776.  'to  make  and 
prepare  suitable  molds,  washers  and  utensils  for  carrying  on  the  paper 
manufactory. 

An  announcement  of  Nathan  Sellers'  improvements  in  working  wire 
will  be  found  in  a  paper  I  contributed  to  James  Wilcox's  account  of  the 
Ivy  paper  mill  (See  M.S.  Collection,  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society.) 

In  this  will  also  be  found  some  account  of  the  firm  of  Nathan  and 
David  Sellers  who  established  the  wire  works  at  Sixth  and  Market 
streets  after  the  Revolution. 

Nathan  Sellers'  business  card  will  be  found  in  the  Pennsylvania  Ga- 
zette, August  4,  1779.  and  after  taking  his  younger  brother  into  partner- 
ship, their  joint  advertisement  appears  in  the  Gazette,  Feb.  9,  1780,  and 
later  issues. 

'In  the  Postscript  to  the  Maryland  Journal,  No.  668,  November  2, 
1784,  there  is  an  advertisement  of  their  'Manufactory  of  Wire  Work, 
in  which  they  refer  to  the  screens,  sieves  and  other  appliances  in- 
cluding screens  for  windows,  etc.,  and  in  this  they  state  that  they 
gained  their  experience  under  their  father  (John  Sellers,  the  first  in- 
ventor of  this  Branch  of  the  Business  in  America). 

Nathan  Sellers'  interest  in  the  business  eventually  passed  to  his  son 


THE    WIRE    FABRIC    INDUSTRY    IX    AMERICA  425 

Soleman  Sellers  (1781-1834),  who  developed  a  high  degree  of  inventive 
ability  and  business  enterprise,  and  on  the  dissolution  of  the  firm  of 
N.  &  D.  Sellers  the  most  important  manufacturing  end  of  the  business, 
including  the  machine  card,  paper  making  machinery  and  general  ma- 
chinery departments  passed  to  the   firm  of   Soleman   Sellers   &   Sons. 

The  sons  of  David  Sellers  (1757-1813),  retained  the  wire  store  and 
general  wire  weaving  business  that  was  continued  until  recent  years 
by  that  branch  of  the  family.  The  business  last  known  as  Seller 
Bros,  was  discontinued  in   1876. 

I  have  much  relating  to  the  early  work  of  Nathan  Sellers,  some  of 
his  account  books  dating  from  1776  with  correspondence  books  relating 
to  the  business.  Although  his  father,  John  Sellers,  is  credited  with 
having  established  the  wire  working  industry  in  America,  it  was  his 
son  Nathan  who  developed  it,  through  his  ingenuity  and  business  en- 
terprise. He  was  the  first  to  devise  the  process  of  annealing  wire  in 
closed  vessels  and  made  improvements  in  the  methods  of  straightening 
and  drawing  wire  required  in  making  wire  faces  for  paper  moulds; 
these  processes  being  adopted  afterwards  by  manufacturers  in  England. 

When  wool  or  vellum  faced  paper  moulds  came  into  use,  N.  &  D. 
Sellers  at  first  imported  the  wove  wire-  Noting  the  tendency  of  this 
woven  wire  to  buckle,  due  to  unequal  tension  in  the  wires  of  the 
warp,  Nathan  Sellers  devised  a  long  loom  in  which  every  wire  in  the 
warp  could  be  kept  at  equal  tension.  He  also  abandoned  the  imported 
sleighs  Avhich  were  found  defective  and  after  a  series  of  experiments 
improved  the  process  and  incidentally  perfected  a  guage  of  his  own 
invention  by  which  he  obtained  greater  uniformity  in  size  of  the  wires. 
Nathan  Sellers  was  the  only  maker  of  paper  molds  in  the  country,  and 
by  constant  improvement  in  processes  as  well  as  in  diversity  of  pro- 
ducts the  manufactory  he  established  and  which  was  further  extended 
by  his  son,  Coleman  Sellers,  held  a  leading  place  among  the  industries 
of  the  country  during  the  eighteenth  and  early  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  It  was  the  improved  equipment  of  the  machine  works 
of  Coleman  Sellers  &  Sons  that  induced  the  commissioners  of  the  Co- 
lumbia Railroad  to  place  a  contract  wnth  this  firm  for  several  of  the 
first  locomotives  built  in  the  early  thirties,  and  it  was  on  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  Sellers  firm  that  some  of  the  improvements  were  made  in 
the  design  of  the  American  locomotive  that  have  survived  in  the  mod- 
ern construction.  The  business  was  continued  until  a  few  years  after 
the  death  of  Soleman  Sellers  when  it  was  finally  closed  out  about  the 
year  1842. 

Many  particulars  relating  to  the  work  of  Nathan  Sellers  and  his  suc- 
cessors will  be  found  in  a  series  of  articles  entitled  "Early  Engineering 
Reminiscences",  by  George  Escol  Sellers,  in  the  American  Machinist, 
1888-1890.  The  author  was  associated  with  N.  &.  D.  Sellers  and  a 
junior  member  of  the  firm  of  Coleman  Sellers  &  Sons." 

Probably  the  second  oldest  factory  for  making  wire  products 
was   located   in   Baltimore   and   was   started   by   one   Balderston. 


426  THE    WIRE    FABRIC    INDUSTRY    IN    AMERICA 

The  late  Thomas  Balderston  stated  that  the  name  of  the  founder 
of  the  business  was  Hugh,  who  started  the  business  in  1793,  but 
the  first  Baltimore  Directory  (1796)  gives  the  name  of  Isaiah 
Balderston  as  "Wire  manufacturer  and  fan  maker.  Old  Town, 
31  Front  Street".  Isaiah  is  listed  in  succeeding  issues  until 
1804  when  both  I.  Balderston  and  Sons  and  Hugh  Balderston 
are  given.  The  business  was  continued  by  a*  member  of  the 
family  until  1912  when  the  last  descendant,  Thomas  Balderston. 
disposed  of  it.     Mr.  Balderston  died  July  27,  1919. 

In  Boston,  wire  products  were  made  as  early  as  1810  by 
Samuel  Adams,  whose  name  appears  in  the  directory  of  that  year 
as  a  wire  worker,  also  Isaac  ^^^illiams  is  listed  in  the  directory  of 
1816  as  a  wire  worker.  This  business  has  changed  ownership 
several  times  and  is  now  conducted  under  the  name  of  IMorss 
&  Whyte  Co.,  at  Cambridge,  Alass.  Probably  there  were  con- 
temporary wire-weavers  in  New  York  but  I  have  not  been  able 
to  get  any  information  about  the  industry  in  that  city. 

The  beginning  of  the  manufacture  of  Fourdrinier  cloth  used 
in  the  manufacture  of  paper  was  described  in  the  Paper  Trade 
Journal  of  October  16,  1897,  by  Cornelius  Van  Houten,  Treasurer 
of  the  DeWitt  Wire  Cloth  Company  as  follows : 

"In  the  spring  of  1847,  William  Staniar  came  from  England  and 
brought  to  America  a  model  for  weaving  Fourdrinier  wires,  he  being 
then  connected  with  William  Stephens  &  Son,  Belleville,  New  Jersey, 
in  which  firm  he  had  an  interest.  From  that  model  I  made  the  first 
American  loom  for  weaving  Fourdrinier  wire,  and  in  September,  1847, 
Mr.  Staniar  and  myself  wove  the  first  American-made  wire,  he  being 
the  'right  hand'  and  I  the  'left  hand'  man  on  the  loom.  That  first 
wire  was  sixty-two  inches  b}^  twent3^-four  feet  ten  inches,  and  was 
used  in  the  mill  of  J.  &  R.  Kingsland,  at  North  Belleville  (now  Frank- 
lin), N.  J." 

Pennsylvania  is  also  the  cradle  of  another  wire  product  due 
to  the  invention  of  Thomas  Jenkins  of  Pottsville,  Pa.,  who  was 
granted  a  patent  on  a  process  for  making  metal  fabric.  A  copy 
of  the  claim  of  the  patent  granted  March  6,  1847,  reads  as  follows  : 

"The  manufacturing  of  screens  or  sieves  from  wire  of  the  larger 
sizes,  either  rolled  or  drawn,  the  wire  from  Avhich  they  are  made  be- 
ing prepared  by  crinkling,  as  herein  set  forth,  previously  to  its  being 
formed  into  meshes,  by  which  procedure  I  am  enabled  to  manufacture 
screens  with  meshes  of  the  larger  sizes — say  four  inches  on  the  side, 
more  or  less — and  in   such  manner  as  thev  shall  be  more  durable  and 


THE    WIRE    FABRIC    INDUSTRY    IN    AMERICA  427 

less  costly  than  those  made  in  other  ways,  and  this  new  manufacture 
of  sieves  I  claim  independently  of  the  particular  manner  of  effecting  the 
crinkling  or  of  interweaving  the  wire  so  as  to  form  the  requisite  meshes." 

Under  this  patent  the  wires  or  rods  were  crimped  in  advance 
of  weaving.  First  this  was  done  by  flat  plates  with  ridges  which 
pressed  indentations  in  the  wires  or  rods  corresponding  with  the 
desired  spacing.  Later  the  work  was  done  by  wheels  with  teeth 
which  crimped  the  wires  for  the  required  mesh. 

At  first  the  invention  was  applied  to  the  production  of  heavy 
screening  and  the  wires  were  woven  by  hand.  Later  the  same 
idea  was  employed  for  making  wire  work  with  either  diamond 
or  square  meshes.  In  some  cases  the  wires  running  in  both  di- 
rections were  crimped  and  for  other  work  the  wires  in  one  direc- 
tion were  not  crimped  in  advance  of  weaving.  At  a  later 
date,  wire  cloth  was  made  on  looms  under  the  patent.  The 
straight  long  wires  (warp)  were  wound  on  a  beam  and  the  filling 
wires  driven  up  by  a  lathe  to  the  required  spacing,  giving  at  the 
same  time  the  crimp  to  the  warp  wires. 

A  relative  of  the  inventor  told  me  some  years  ago  that  Mr. 
Jenkins  was  the  owner  of  an  iron  works  and  among  his  customers 
were  the  anthracite  coal  miners  who  obtained  screens  from  him 
for  grading  coal.  These,  at  first  were  made  by  placing  rods  at 
right  angles  to  form  suitable  openings  and  then  tying  them  to- 
gether at  the  intersections  by  small  wires.  These  screens  did 
not  prove  satisfactory  as  the  small  wires  wore  out  and  the  rods 
would  move  and  form  irregular  openings.  From  this  Mr. 
Jenkins  saw  the  demand  for  a  durable  fabric  and  hence  the  in- 
vention of  the  crimped  screening  which  has  developed  into  one 
of  the  greatest  importance.  Most  of  the  wire  work  made  at  the 
present  time,  and  all  crimped  wire  cloth  is  the  result  of  this 
invention. 

A  power  loom  was  constructed  about  1860  in  Clinton,  Mass., 
through  the  enterprise  of  E.  B.  Bigelow,  who  was  engaged  in 
the  manufacture  of  carpets.  He  adapted  a  loom  for  weaving 
carpets  to  weaving  wire.  Owing  to  the  limited  demand  for  wire 
cloth,  it  was  required  only  in  short  lengths  and  it  was  found  that 
the  initial  cost  of  warping  a  hand  loom  was  less,  hence  the  power 
loom  did  not  come  into  general  use  till  later. 

Prior  to    1870   there   was   comparatively   little   change    in   the 


428  THE    WIRE    FABRIC    INDUSTRY    IN    AMERICA 

manufacture  of  wire  cloth.  Practically  all  of  it  was  made  on 
hand  looms  similar  in  construction  to  looms  used  for  weaving 
fabrics  of  cotton,  wool  and  other  materials.  There  were  small 
manufactories  located  in  a  number  of  cities  and  towns,  many  of 
which  have  gone  out  of  existence  since  the  establishment  of 
works  which  weave  cloth  on  a  large  scale  with  automatic  ma- 
chinery at  a  much  lower  cost.  The  uses  for  wire  cloth  were  very 
limited,  embracing  sieves  for  grain  cleaning,  flour  sieves  for 
household  use,  screens  and  riddles  for  sifting  sand  and  gravel, 
and  cloth  for  use  in  flour  mills. 

Wire  netting  was  first  manufactured  in  1865  in  the  United 
States  on  power  machinery  by  Gilbert,  Bennett  &  Company. 
Georgetown,  Conn.,  although  Joshua  Horrock  probably  made 
netting  in  a  very  limited  way  on  a  hand  loom  sometime  prior. 
The  business  did  not  develop  to  any  great  extent  for  a  long  time 
owing  to  competition  of  the  product  made  in  England,  however, 
in  1883  a  protective  tarifif  became  effective  and  since  then  the 
industry  has  developed  to  large  proportions. 

In  the  preceding  lines  a  record  is  given  of  the  genesis  of  the 
wire  fabrics  industry  in  the  United  States  and  the  name  of  the 
men  who  are  entitled  to  credit  for  its  inception.  From  the 
small  beginnings  has  been  developed  an  annual  product  amount- 
ing to  several  millions  of  dollars  which  is  made  in  many  estab- 
lishments located  in  several  states  from  coast  to  coast.  A  wire 
fabric  is  used  in  the  construction  of  many  articles,  also  in  the 
manufacture  of  almost  everything.  A  wire  fabric  of  some  kind 
is  also  required  at  some  point  from  the  initial  process  to  the 
finished  article,  besides  large  quantities  of  material  are  made  and 
sold  as  merchandise  to  consumers  who  find  use  for  the  same  for 
innumerable  purposes ;  therefore  the  industry  is  of  great  im- 
portance to  modern  civilization. 


Old  Fences  in  Bucks  County. 

BY  HENRY  W.  GROSS,  DOYLESTOWN,  PA. 
(Friends  Meeting  House,   Newtown,  June   3,   1922.) 

THE  subject  assigned  should  not  necessarily  include  "Old 
Fences  in  Bucks  County",  but  fences  in  general  wherever 
used.  Undoubtedly  fences  of  some  type  were  needed  and 
constructed  centuries  ago,  the  particular  design  depending  upon 
location,  requirement  and  material  at  hand. 

Some  one  says :  Fences  in  agriculture  have  a  two-fold  purpose, 
"keeping  in  and  keeping  out".  Originally  they  were  constructed 
of  wood  or  stone,  depending  upon  which  material  was  avail- 
able, convenient  or  desirable. 

"Stump-fences"  were  and  are  to  be  found  in  new  settlements 
where  land  is  cheap,  and  stumps  are  plenty  after  the  removal  of 
standing  timber. 

What  is  known  as  the  "Swedes-fence"  is  adapted  to  steep  hills 
and  was  probably  introduced  into  this  country  by  pioneers  from 
Sweden.  It  never  came  to  be  a  popular  fence  in  this  country 
though  almost  any  kind  of  waste  wood  can  be  utilized  in  its 
construction. 

In  the  vicinity  of  Penobscot  county,  Maine,  a  cedar  sapling  or 
log  fence  is  quite  popular.  Cedar  thickets  are  very  common  there, 
and  the  trees,  when  about  one  foot  in  diameter,  are  cut  down 
and  sawed  into  lengths  of  fifteen  feet  or  more,  trimmed  and  they 
are  ready  for  the  fence.  Two  stakes  about  one  foot  apart  are 
driven  or  planted  into  the  ground.  At  about  the  length  of  the 
panel  two  more  stakes  are  located,  etc.,  then  the  saplings  of  two 
adjoining  panels  alternate  between  two  stakes  and  when  the  de- 
sired height  is  reached  the  stakes  are  permanently  yoked  at  the 
top  and  the  enclosure  is  complete. 

The  zig-zag  worm,  stake  and  rider-fence  was  popular  and  had 
its  place  and  use  here  in  Bucks  county  while  timber  was  plenty, 
labor  and  land  cheap,  but  it  has  been  relegated  and  become  his- 
torical because  land  is  too  valuable  to  be  occupied  by  fencing  that 
necessitates  occupying  good  farming  land  six  to  eight  feet  in 
width  wherever  erected,   for  the  entire   length  of  the  structure 


430  OLD    FENCES    IX    BUCKS    COUNTY 

whether  one  mile  or  many  miles.  It  was  rails  for  that  kind  of 
fences  that  Abraham  Lincoln  and  John  Hanks  split  in  1830  in 
the  Sangamon  bottom,  two  of  which  played  such  an  important 
part  in  the  Illinois  state  convention.  May  9  and  10,  1860,  giving 
"Honest  Old  Abe",  the  sobriquet  of  "Rail  Splitter". 

The  material  for  stone  fences  needed  probably  as  little  prepara- 
tion by  man  as  any  other  fence,  as  the  land  had  to  be  cleared  of 
stones  for  cultivation.  The  stone-wall  fences,  when  properly 
erected,  needed  less  attention  for  repairs  and  were  more  durable 
than  any  other  kind  or  style  of  fence.  A  competent  stone-wall 
builder  seldom  used  a  hammer  to  shape  the  stones,  but  appeared 
to  have  a  suitable  place  for  every  stone  picked  up.  As  the  good 
road  movement  developed  in  Plennsylvania,  and  the  demand  for 
broken  and  crushed  stones  increased,  the  stone-wall  material,  in 
some  sections  has  been  carted  to  the  State  highways,  and  prob- 
ably some  of  the  money  obtained  for  it  has  been  used  for 
buying  automobiles,  which  now  speed  over  the  macadamized  and 
concrete  roads,  which  contain  the  stone-wall  material  from  the 
farms.  Stone-wall  fences,  however,  still  remain  throughout  the 
New  England  states,  where  hundreds  of  miles  of  them  can  be  seen. 

Wire  fences,  ornamental  fences  constructed  of  wood  or  iron, 
or  both,  depending  for  what  purpose  to  be  used  and  the  fancy 
of  the  builder,  have  been  introduced,  and  lately  nicely  trimmed 
hedge  fences  have  also  become  very  popular. 

But  the  type  of  fence  to  which  I  wish  to  call  particular  atten- 
tion is  the  post  and  rail  fence.  A  very  practical,  sightly  and  sub- 
stantial fence,  providing  the  proper  care  is  taken  in  selecting  and 
preparing  the  material.  In  the  slate  section  of  Northampton 
county,  Pa.,  many  of  the  posts  used  are  constructed  of  slate  ma- 
terial properly  shaped  and  dressed  to  suit.  But  the  post  and  rail 
fence  in  general  use  is  composed  entirely  of  wood  material.  In 
winter,  probably  during  the  coldest  days,  it  was  customary,  seven- 
ty years  ago  for  the  farmer  and  his  boys  to  select  and  cut  or  saw 
down  chestnut  or  white  oak  trees — the  fallen  trees  were  sawed 
into  proper  lengths — six  to  seven  feet  for  posts  and  eleven  feet  for 
rails.  In  case  white  oak  or  rock  oak  was  selected  this  work  was 
generally  done  in  the  spring  of  the  year  when  the  sap  was  flowing 
and  the  trees  could  be  barked.  The  bark  was  allowed  to  dry — 
then  corded  in  the  woods  and  in  the  fall  of  the  vear  hauled  to 


OLD    FENCES    IX    BUCKS    COUXTV  431 

some  tannery.  In  this  territory  the  tannery  was  Gilberts',  Hoh- 
cong,  Pa.,  at  that  time  the  village  was  known  by  the  name  of 
Greenville.  The  load  of  dried  bark  was  "swapped"  for  leather  or 
sold  for  cash. 

The  leather  whether  sole  or  upper  was  given  into  the  custody 
of  the  family  shoemaker.  The  different  members  of  the  family 
had  their  feet  measured  to  determine  the  size  of  the  shoes  needed ; 
the  proper  record  as  to  the  size  from  heel  to  toe,  the  height  of 
the  instep  and  the  width  of  the  foot  were  all  in  the  shoemaker's 
care  and  he  was  held  responsible  for  the  fit.  To  convert  those 
oak  logs  into  post  and  rail  sizes  by  means  of  a  maul  and  iron  or 
wooden  wedges,  muscle  and  good  judgment  were  required  to 
utilize  the  material  to  the  best  advantage. 

The  posts  and  rails  being  split  they  were  carted  home  to  the 
family  wood  pile  and  there  the  rails  were  dressed  at  the  ends 
with  the  broadax  so  as  to  make  them  attractive  and  later  usable 
in  erecting  a  post  and  rail  fence.  The  pointing  of  the  rails  and 
the  hewing  of  the  posts  was  a  trick  reserved  for  the  few  and  not 
given  to  the  many.  Hewing  or  squaring  the  upper  two-thirds 
of  the  posts  with  an  axe  and  a  broadax  was  another  step  or 
process  required  in  which  the  post  in  its  rough  state  was  fastened 
down  with  an  iron  dog  on  two  heavy  cross  pieces  of  wood  to 
give  it  stability  and  elevation  while  being  dressed  with  the  two 
tools  mentioned.  The  chiseling  out  and  at  a  later  period  boring 
and  cutting  out  post-holes  the  proper  size  and  regular  distance 
apart  was  probably  a  slow,  tedious  process  previous  to  the  in- 
vention and  patenting  of  the  spiral  or  thread  auger  for  which  let- 
ters patent  were  granted  in  1809  which  are  recorded  at  Wash- 
ington, D.  C.  Though  there  is  indisputable  evidence  that  post 
and  rail  fences  were  constructed  in  this  county  previous  to  the 
year  1798,  eleven  years  before  the  spiral  auger  was  patented. 
What  is  known  as  the  pod  auger  may  have  been  in  use  before 
spiral  construction,  thus  partly  eliminating  the  use  of  mallet  and 
chisel  in  shaping  post-holes. 

"Necessity",  it  is  said,  "is  the  mother  of  invention".  The  spiral 
auger  was  introduced  with  a  cross  section  for  the  handle  and  the 
shaping  of  the  post-holes  became  comparatively  easy  but  it  was 
too  slow.  The  spirit  of  going  fast  had  already  taken  possession 
of  the  American  mind,  one  hundred  vears  before  the  automobile 


432  OLD    FENCES    IX    RUCKS    COUNTY 

or  airplane  pace  was  established.  And  so  we  find  that  some 
genius  thought  out  and  constructed  a  post-boring  machine  and 
did  for  the  laboring  man  w^hat  Dr.  Babcock  did  for  the  dairyman, 
just  gave  his  wonderful  invention  to  the  public  without  asking 
for  any  royalty  whatever.  The  post-boring  machine  became  a 
community  affair,  borrowed,  carted  and  used  by  every  farmer  in 
the  neighborhood.  The  post-holes  being  bored  another  important 
step  presented  itself,  cutting  out  those  holes  with  a  small  axe 
called  a  post-axe.  This  work  had  to  be  done  "on  the  square"  or 
the  rails  could  not  be  introduced  and  properly  tightened  without 
twisting  and  having  many  posts  standing  at  different  angles,  no 
two  exactly  alike  when  fastened. 

The  trees  cut  down,  the  logs  sawed  the  proper  length,  then 
split,  carted  home,  rails  pointed,  posts  hewn,  holes  bored  and 
dressed,  the  next  step  was  to  haul  the  prepared  material  to  where 
the  fence  was  to  be  erected.  The  line  of  fence  to  be  built  was 
first  marked  with  stakes  having  a  piece  of  white  fabric  fastened 
to  them.  These  were  sighted  over  and  the  places  for  the  posts 
located  and  marked ;  hard  work  was  then  needed  to  dig  holes  and 
later  to  fasten  the  posts  rigidly. 

Now  whether  the  posts  are  hewed  or  sawed,  the  rails  split  or 
sawed,  if  all  the  details  are  carefully  followed,  rigidly  adhered  to, 
the  posts  lined  as  to  height  and  direction,  the  rails  properly  se- 
lected and  mated  then  the  post  and  rail  fence  is  a  credit  and  an 
ornament  for  any  community,  a  good  safe  indication  of  stability 
of  character,  and  a  stranger  may  rest  assured  that  there  is  no 
need  of  being  ashamed  to  be  seen  in  that  neighborhood,  nor  of 
being  a  native  of  that  community  but  that  it  is  a  desirable  terri- 
tory in  which  to  buy  a  home — to  enjoy  life — and  spend  ones  days. 


TOMB  OP   COL.   ARTHUR   ERWIX. 

>rivate    burying-ground    along    the    Delaware 
River,   near   Erwinna,   Bucks  County, 
Pennsylvania. 


Colonel  Arthur  Erwin  and  James  Fennimore  Cooper's  Novel, 
"Wyandotte  or  the  Hutted  Knoll." 

BY  B.   F.   FACKENTHAL,  JR.,  SC.  D.,  RIEGELSVILLE,   PA. 
(Friends   Meeting   House,    Solebury,    October    14,    1922.) 

>»i>Wf^^HE  special  thought  in  preparing  this  paper  on 
Colonel  Arthur  Erwin,  was  to  preserve  a  tradi- 
tion which  leads  to  the  belief  that  certain  inci- 
dents in  his  life  and  death  led  James  Fennimore 
Cooper  to  use  them  as  the  foundation  for  his 
novel  IVyandotte  or  the  Hutted  Knoll,  published 
in  1843.  But  my  study  of  his  life,  and  of  his  family,  has  led  me 
to  add  some  of  the  leading  features  of  their  history. 

Arthur  Erwin  was  a  Scotch-Irishman,  born  in  the  north  of  Ire- 
land in  1726.  During  the  early  part  of  May  1768,  he  embarked 
for  America,  sailing  in  the  ship  "Newry  Assistance,"  from  the 
port  of  Newry  on  Carlington  Bay,  on  the  Irish  coast,  with  his 
wife  and  five  small  children ;  John,  the  oldest  was  twelve,  and 
Hugh,  the  youngest,  but  one  year  old.  His  wife  died  at  sea  July 
10,  1768,  and  after  a  voyage  lasting  over  three  months,  Mr.  Er- 
win with  his  five  children  landed  in  Philadelphia  August  18,  1768. 
They  went  direct  to  Dyerstown  in  Bucks  County,  where  Arthur's 
brother,  William,  had  in  1755,  purchased  two  hundred  and  twen- 
ty-six acres  of  land,  and  where  he  and  his  wife,  Margaret,  nee 
Earle,  made  their  home.^ 

Arthur  Erwin  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  some  means,  and 
no  doubt  guided  by  the  advice  and  counsel  of  his  brother,  bought, 
March  16.  1769,  two  tracts  of  land  in  Tinicum  Township,  Bucks 
County,  aggregating  five  hundred  and  twenty-eight  acres  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty  seven  perches.  These  were  part  of  the  lands 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Land  Company  of  London,  but  Gen.  Davis, 
in  his  History  of  Bucks  County,  Vol.  II,  p.  5.  has  fallen  into  an 
error  in  saying  that  Arthur  Erwin  purchased  1,563  acres  32 
perches  direct  from  the  London  Company,  overlooking  the  fact 

1  "William  Erwin.  brother  of  Arthur,  came  to  America  from  Ireland  about 
1750.  He  was  probably  accompanied  by  four  other  brothers.  John,  Hugh, 
Nathaniel  and  Alexander.  Hugh  died  intestate  in  Springfield  township  in 
1753,  and  letters  of  administration  were  granted  to  his  widow,  Elizabeth,  on 
May   14,   1753. 


434  COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN 

that  the  lands  remaining  unsold  in  that  company,  were  disbursed 
in  1761,  seven  years  before  the  arrival  of  Arthur.  On  May  1, 
1769,  Arthur  Erwin  moved  on  his  Tinicum  plantation,  and  there 
he  reared  his  fainily  and  lived  over  the  remainder  of  his  life.  The 
town  of  Erwinna,  named  for  him,  is  located  on  that  tract.  The 
records  at  Doylestown  show  that  Colonel  Erwin  owned  at  dif- 
ferent times,  and  practically  all  at  one  time,  2.402  acres  19 
perches  of  land  in  Bucks  County,  of  which  1,859  acres  101  perches 
were  in  Tinicum,  and  the  remainder  in  Plumstead,  Nockamixon, 
Springfield  and  Durham  Townships.  His  large  holdings  of  land 
in  Lurenze  County,  Pa.,  and  Steuben  County,  N.  Y.,  will  be  re- 
ferred to  later  in  this  paper.  On  the  death  of  Colonel  Erwin  in 
1791  (he  died  intestate),  the  homestead  was  adjudged  to  his  then 
oldest  living  son,  Joseph,  who  did  not  marry.  Joseph  lived  thereon 
until  his  death  in  1807.  In  his  will  he  devised  this  homestead 
tract  to  his  brother  William,  who  made  his  home  there  down  to 
the  time  of  his  death  in  1836,  and  as  General  Davis  records,  not 
one  acre  of  these  ancestral  lands  in  Bucks  County  is  now  owned 
by  a  member  of  the  Erwin  family. - 

Colonel  Arthur  Erwin  married  a  second  time,  viz,  on  July  27, 
1771,  to  Mary  Kennedy,  daughter  of  William  Kennedy  of  Spring- 
field Township.^  By  this  union  there  were  six  children,  four  sons 
and  two  daughters,  all  living  to  maturity.  One  of  the  daughters, 
Sarah  (1773-1854).  married  Dr.  John  Cooper,  the  other,  Re- 
becca (1775-1848).  married  Dr.  William  McKean,  both  of 
Easton,  Pa.  It  appears  from  the  records  at  Doylestown,  that 
there  was  some  lack  of  harmony  between  Colonel  Erwin  and  his 
second  wife.  She  brought  suit  against  him  in  the  quarter  ses- 
sions at  Newtown  (then  the  county-seat),  for  support,  declaring 
that  she  had  been  ejected  from  her  home  and  otherwise  badly 
treated.  Later  she  made  her  home  at  Easton,  where  she  passed 
away  July  29.  1817.  Her  body  and  that  of  her  son.  Dr.  John 
Erwin.  the  second  son  of  that  name  (who  did  not  marry),  lie 
buried  in  the  Easton  cemetery. 

Colonel  Arthur  Erwin  and  two  of  his  sons,  John  and  William, 
had  splendid  military  records  during  the  Revolutionary  War. 
Arthur  was  elected  captain  of  a  company  of  Bucks  County  Asso- 

2  History  of  Bucks  County,  by  Gen.  W.  W.  H.  Davis.  Vol.  II,  pp  .5  &  6. 

3  Pennsylvania  Archives.  Second  Series,  Vol.   II,  p.   82. 


COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN  435 

ciators,  recruited  in  Tinicum  Township.  His  son,  John,  was  a  pri- 
vate in  the  same  company.  On  May  6,  1777,  Arthur  was  com- 
missioned as  colonel  of  the  Second  Battalion  of  Pennsylvania 
Milita.  He  was  therefore  justly  entitled  to  his  military  rank 
of  Colonel."* 

His  eldest  son,  John,  born  in  Ireland  in  1756,  was  enrolled,  first 
as  an  associator  and  then  on  July  9,  1776,  in  the  Pennsylvania 
militia,  as  second  lieutenant  in  Capt.  John  Jamison's  company  of 
the  Flying  Camp,  under  Colonel  Joseph  Hart.''  They  at  once  en- 
tered into  active  service  in  defense  of  Fort  Washington  on  Man- 
hattan Island  under  Col.  Robert  Magaw.*^  This  fort  was  attacked 
by  Sir  William  Howe  and  forced  to  surrender  November  16, 
1776.  Lieut.  John  Erwin  was  among  those  taken  prisoner,  and 
remained  in  captivity,  presumably  on  a  prison  ship,  for  five  years 
until  exchanged  and  paroUed  February  25,  1781.  His  confine- 
ment and  the  treatment  he  received,  ruined  his  health,  from  the 
effects  of  which  he  died  February,  1782.  These  facts  are  set 
forth  in  his  petition  to  the  Orphans  Court  of  Bucks  County, 
which  granted  him  an  allowance  of  half  pay  of  a  lieutenant,  but 
he  passed  away  two  months  after  this  pension  was  granted.^  His 
body  lies  buried  in  the  Erwin  private  burying-ground  in  Tinicum 
Township,  situated  on  the  west  side  of  the  river  road  about  one 
hundred  and  eighty  yards  north  of  the  Pennsylvania  end  of  the 
Frenchtown  Delaware  River  bridge. 

William,  the  third  son  of  Colonel  Erwin,  was  born  in  Ireland 
January  31,  1760.  In  June  1782,  he  married  Achsah  R.,  daugh- 
ter of  Dr.  John  and  Rachel  (Robeson)  Rockhill,  of  Hunterdon 
County,  N.  J.^  They  were  the  parents  of  five  children,  one  son, 
and  four  daughters.  The  son,  Scott  R.,  died  May  27,  1823.  His 
daughter,  Julianna,  widow  of  John  L.  Dick,^  second  wife  of 
Thomas  G.  Kennedy,  died  May  28,  1823,  and  his  son-in-law, 
Charles  Howell,  died  September  3,  1823,  all  of  typhus  fever.  His 
daughter,  Rachel,  widow  of   Charles  Howell,  became  the  third 

4  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Second  Series,  Vol.  XIV,  pp.  169,  180,  and  Fifth 
Series,  Vol.  V,  pp.   318,   333,   3C2. 

5  Ibid,  Second  Series,  Vol.  XIV,  p.  757,  and  Fifth  Series,  Vol.  V,  pp.  321, 
447. 

6  Fort  Washington  was  on  Manhatten,  overlooking  the  Hudson  River,  be- 
tween the  present   181st  and   182nd  Street,   New  York  City. 

7  This  petition  is  recorded  at  Doylestown,   Book  B,  page   112. 
s   New  Jersey  Archives.  Vol.   XXII,  p.    127. 

9  John  Ij.  Dick  married  Julianna  Erwin  December  15.  1814.  He  died  of 
typhus  fever,  February  1,  1815.  Julianna,  his  widow,  became  the  second  wife 
of  Thomas  G.  Kennedy. 


436  COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN 

wife  of  Thomas  G.  Kennedy.^'-  On  October  11,  1781,  a  few- 
months  before  coming  of  age,  William  Erwin  was  commissioned 
as  Captain  of  the  Third  Battalion  of  the  First  Regiment  of  Foot. 
After  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  on  April  17,  1786,  appointed 
Captain  of  the  Eighth  Company  of  Bucks  County  Militia. ^^  He 
was  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  State  Senate,  1816  to  1825. 
He  served  for  some  years  as  a  justice-of-the-peace,  in  and  for 
the  County  of  Bucks. 

Captain  William  Erwin,  "Esquire  Billy,"  as  he  was  familiarly 
called,  was  probably  the  most  prominent  member  of  the  Erwin 
family  in  Bucks  County.  At  the  time  of  his  death,  June  16,  1836, 
he  owned  many  tracts  of  land  within  the  county.  He  obtained 
patents  for  at  least  four  of  the  islands  in  the  Delaware  River, 
viz :  Fish,  Laughries,  Resolution  and  Wall's  Island.  His 
brother,  Hugh,  was  granted  a  patent  for  Pennington  Island. ^- 
The  inventory  of  his  personal  estate  amounted  to  $68,562.25. 
Both  he  and  his  wife,  his  only  son,  Scott  R.,  two  daughters  and 
his  son-in-law,  Thomas  G.  Kennedy,  are  buried  in  the  Erwin 
burying-ground,  located  on  his  property,  to  which  reference  has 
been  made.  His  will  provided  for  building  a  stone  wall  around 
it,  this  was  done  by  his  executors,  (but  it  was  built  of  bricks  with 
a  stone  copying)  at  a  cost  of  $498.10.  There  appears  to  be  no 
provision  in  any  of  the  Erwin  wills  to  care  for  this  ancestral 
place  of  sepulture,  and  like  most  other  private  burying-grounds. 
it  is  fast  going  into  decay.  It  contains  twelve  marked  graves, 
and  apparently  two  or  three  not  marked. 

Joseph  Erwin,  the  second  son  of  Colonel  xA.rthur,  and  the  oldest 

10  Thomas  G.  Kennedy  (son  of  James  Kennedy,  who  died  at  Newtown 
January  7„  1824,  aged  82  years),  was  born  1783,  died  in  1836.  His  first 
wife  was  Violetta,  daughter  of  Isaac  Hicks  of  Newtown,  Pa.  She  lost 
her  life  by  drowning  in  Newtown  Creek,  while  trying  to  save  the  life 
of  her  child.  Thomas  was  considerable  of  a  democratic  politician.  He  served 
Bucks  Countyi  as  Prothonotary  1809  to  1818;  was  a  member  of  the  Assembly 
1818-19,  and  sheriff  of  Bucks  county  1819-20.  In  1827  he  was  appointed 
superintendent  of  the  Delaware  Division  of  the  Pennsylvania  Canal,  running 
from  Bristol  to  Easton.  (See  his  reports  in  Hazard's  Register,  Vol.  I,  p. 
118,  and  other  reports  in  same  publications.)  He  was  the  leading  spirit  in 
the  building  of  the  Philadelphia  &  Trenton  Railroad  from  Kensington  to 
Trenton,  now  part  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  system.  He,  with  Richard 
Morris  (the  contract  standing  in  name  of  Morris,  but  a  supplementary  agree- 
ment between  Morris  and  Kennedy  shows  that  they  were  equal  partners), 
entered  into  a  contract  on  January  1,  1833,  to  grade  a  double  track  road 
bed  and  construct  all  bridges  for  the  sum  of  $161,047.  They  agreed  to  take 
in  part  pay  any  and  all  stock  that  the  directors  had  subscribed  for  which 
they  themselves  did  not  want  to  retain  and  pay  for.  Later  Mr.  Kennedy  was 
secretary  and  treasurer  of  the  road. 

11  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Fifth  Series,  Vol.  V.  pp.  353,  362,  419,  429,  430, 
433,    437. 

12  IMd,  Third   Series,  Vol.    II,   p]i.    475   to   477. 


COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN  437 

living  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death,  was  born  in  Ireland  July 
24,  1758.  He  did  not  marry.  Died  in  1807  at  the  age  of  49  years, 
and  was  buried  in  the  family  private  burying-ground.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  man  of  parts,  but  with  varied  activities  dur- 
ing the  early  years  of  his  career,  particularly  during  the  War  of 
Independence.  Among  his  papers  was  fotmd  a  most  interesting 
narrative  or  autobiography,  setting  forth  the  history  of  his  life 
from  the  time  he  left  Ireland  in  1768,  down  to  the  time  of  his 
father's  death  in  1791.^" 

From  this  narrative  it  appears  that  he  was.  at  the  age  of  14 
years,  apprenticed  to  a  firm  of  merchants  in  Philadelphia.^^ 
Later  he  was  engaged  in  importing  and  exporting,  "Foreign 
Trade,"  he  calls  it,  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  "run- 
ning the  blockade."  He  records  that  on  October  10,  1781,  his 
ship  the  "St.  James'"  which  seems  to  have  been  well  armed,  "fell 
in  with  a  twenty-gun  ship,  and  in  a  severe  action,  which  lasted 
two  hours  and  a  half,"  he  was  shot  with  an  ounce  musket  ball 
through  the  right  shoulder,  and  lost  the  use  of  his  right  arm.  On 
their  arrival  in  France  he  was  taken  to  a  hospital,  where  for  a 
time  his  life  was  dispaired  of.  He  was  rewarded  in  a  special 
manner  by  Capt.  Truxton  for  so  gallantly  aiding  in  the  defence 
of  his  ship.  His  name  appears  among  those  who  were  attained 
of  treason.  The  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Sixth  Series,  Vol.  XIII, 
pp.  466  and  467,  includes  under  date  of  July  30,  1778,  the  name 
of  "Joseph  Erwin  formerly  of  Philadelphia,  trader.  Tinicum" 
*  *  *  "who  have  not  been  proscribed  by  proclamation,  and 
have  since  been  discovered  to  have  joined  the  enemy  at  Phila- 
delphia." 

LANDS  IN   STEUBEN   COUNTY,   NEW  YORK.    . 

After  the  close  of  the  War  of  Independence,  Col.  Arthur  Er- 
win, in  1785,  bought  a  large  tract  of  land  in  Luzerne,  now  Brad- 
ford County,  Pennsylvania,  adjoining  the  New  York  state  line. 
His  activities  in  that  neighborhood  led  him,  in  1789  and  1790,  to 
purchase  still  larger  tracts,  but  to  the  west  thereof,  across  the 
state  line  in  Steuben  County,  New  York,  in  what  was  called  the 
"Genesee  Country,"  the  land  of  the  Six  Nations.     His  first  pur- 

13  Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History.  VoL  XIX.  pp.   397  et  seq. 

14  See  also  Pennsylvania  German  Society,  VoL  XIX,  pp.  120  and  121. 


438  COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN 

chase  there  was  from  Phelps  &  Gorham,  in  the  summer  of  1789, 
and  consisted  of  a  tract  six  miles  square  or  23,040  acres,  em- 
bracing an  entire  township,  beautifully  situated  in  the  valleys  of 
the  rivers  Canisteo  and  Conhocton,  in  which  the  village  of  Painted 
Post  is  located.  The  deed  for  this  tract,  said  to  be  the  first  for 
land  in  that  county,  is  on  record  in  Steuben  County.  The  con- 
sideration was  £1,400,  paid  for  partly  with  a  drove  of  cattle  and 
the  balance  in  gold. 

Painted  Post  was  an  Indian  village,  and  so  named  by  reason 
of  a  large  square  hewed  post,  discovered  by  Gen.  Sullivan  during 
his  campaign  of  1779,  which  had  been  erected  by  the  Indians  in 
memory  of  Captain  Montour,  a  son  of  Queen  Catharine.  It 
stood  on  the  banks  of  the  Conhocton  River,  a  tributary  of  the 
Chemung  which  empties  into  the  Susquehanna.  This  post  was 
painted  red  with  twenty-eight  crude  figures  representing  human 
beings  with  their  heads  cut  off,  and  thirty  other  figures  with  their 
heads  on.  Charles  H.  Erwin,  Esq.,  has  most  graphically  described 
this  beautifully  located  tract,  and  the  circumstances  which  influ- 
enced his  ancestor,  Col.  Erwin,  to  buy  it.^^ 

One  year  later,  in  1790,  Col.  Erwin,  in  company  with  three 
associates,  Solomon  Bennett,  Joel  Thomas  and  Ulrich  Stephens, 
became  owners  of  a  second  tract,  containing  46,080  acres,  em- 
bracing the  entire  towns  of  Hornellsville  and  Canisteo,  in  Steu- 
ben County,  adjoining  his  first  purchase  on  the  west.  This  was 
also  part  of  the  2,600,000  acres  of  disputed  territory  claimed  by 
both  Massachusetts  and  New  York,  of  which  on  April  1,  1788, 
Oliver  Phelps  and  Nathaniel  Gorham  purchased  the  preemption 
rights  of  the  state  of  Massachusetts  for  the  sum  of  $300,000,  and 
on  the  8th  day  of  July  of  the  same  year,  purchased  the  soil  rights 
of  the  Five"  Nations  of  Indians.  These  transactions  settled  for- 
ever the  controversy  between  those  two  states,  and  the  boundary 
line  between  them  was  thereafter  fully  and  definitely  established. 
This  was  apparently  an  easy  way  of  settling  the  dispute,  and  quite 
in  contrast  with  the  long-drawn-out  controversy,  and  wars,  be- 
tween Pennsylvania  and  Connecticut  to  settle  similar  claims,  into 
which  the  states  fell  by  carelessness  or  ignorance  on  the  part  of 
King  Charles  II,  in  granting  rights  in  this  country.     Phelps  and 

lo  Historical  Ilecjister  of  Pennsylvania.  Vol.  I.  pp.   86  to  90  and  188  to  193. 


COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN  439 

Gorhani  were  land  speculators,  and  at  once  placed  their  lands 
upon  the  market.     On  November  18,  1790,  they  conveyed  1,250,- 

000  acres  to  Robert  Morris  of  Philadelphia,  described  in  their 
deeds  as  lands  lying  in  the  district  of  Erwin,  and  known  by  the 
name  of  "Old  Canisteo  Castle."  Later  William  Bingham,  also 
of  Philadelphia,  United  States  senator,  1785  to  1781,  became  in- 
terested in  these  "Genesee  Country"  lands. ^""' 

Col.  Arthur  Erwin  died  seized  of  the  Steuben  County  lands, 
and  in  the  settlement  of  his  estate,  his  administrators,  who  were 
four  of  his  five  sons,  viz :  Joseph,  William,  Hugh  and  Samuel, 
had  considerable  difficulty  and  litigation  in  connection  therewith. 
Two  of  the  sons,  Samuel  and  Francis,  (both  of  his  second  mar- 
riage), moved  to  Painted  Post,  where  they  became  permanent 
residents,  and  where  they  lie  buried.  Samuel  married  Miss  Rachel 
Heckman  of  Easton,  Pa.  They  were  the  parents  of  ten  children, 
many  of  whose  descendants  are  living  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Painted  Post  at  the  present  time. 

The  Erwins  seem  to  have  been  a  family  of  military  tendencies. 

1  have  already  mentioned  Colonel  Arthur,  the  head  of  the  family, 
and  his  sons  Lieutenant  John  and  Captain  William,  all  three  of 
whom  loyally  answered  the  call  of  their  adopted  country.  Be- 
sides these  his  son,  Samuel,  was  in  the  United  States  Infantry 
for  some  years,  first  as  a  lieutenant  appointed  by  President  Adams, 
then  as  a  captain  appointed  by  President  Jefiferson.  Arthur  Jr., 
was  a  major  in  the  New  York  Militia,  and  Dr.  John,  (the  second, 
son  of  that  name)  a  physician  of  Easton,  whose  death  occurred 
June  3,  1820,  was  a  major  in  the  Pennsylvania  Militia.  Dr.  John's 
death  w^as  greatly  mourned  by  his  associates  and  the  citizens  of 
Easton  generally.  The  newspapers  of  that  time  contain  splendid 
biographical  notices  of  his  worth  and  character  as  a  citizen  and 
also  give  accounts  of  his  imposing  military  funeral. 

General  Francis  E.  Erwin  of  Steuben  County,  was  a  son  of 
Samuel,  and  a  grandson  of  Col.  Arthur  Erwin.  It  is  also  likely* 
that  Gen.  James  Irvine,  of  Revolutionary  War  fame,  although  the 
name  is  spelled  differently,  was  of  this  same  family. 

13a  "William  Bingham  (1752-1803).  James  Wilson  and  Robert  Lettis  Hooper. 
Jr.,  were  granted  a  patent  for  30,620  acres  of  land  (called  by  then  the 
"Land  of  Caanan"),  situate  on  both  sides  of  the  Susquehanna.  In  1780  they 
partitioned  these  lands,  and  that  part,  215  acres,  in  what  is  now  the  busi- 
ness centre  of  Binghamton  was  allotted  to  Mr.  Bingham,  after  whom  tlie 
city  of  Binghamton  is  named. 


440  COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN 

LANDS   IN   LUZERNE  COUNTY,   PENNSYLVANIA.^*' 

When  the  Pennsylvania  Land  Office  was  opened,  April,  1785,^^ 
for  distribution  of  lands  by  lottery.  Col.  Erwin,  to  use  his  own 
words,  "became  an  adventurer  for  about  5,000  acres  in  Luzerne 
County,  Pa.,  adjoining  the  New  York  state  line,  and  without  the 
limits  of  those  seventeen  townships  comprehended  in  the  confer- 
ring or  quieting  law,  since  repealed."  These  lands  lay  on  the 
Tioga  River  in  Athens  Township  above  Tioga  Point. ^^ 

Col.  Erwin's  lands  were,  however,  within  the  territory  claimed 
by  Connecticut,  under  their  charter  of  1662,  from  King  Charles 
II,  which  antedated  the  charter  to  William  Penn  by  nineteen 
years.  The  Connecticut  claim  took  in  all  the  northern  part  of 
Pennsylvania  from  the  41st.  degree  of  north  latitude  to  the  42.15 
degree,  which  was  the  New  York  state  line.  This  boundary 
would  take  in  all  the  territory  north  of  a  line  run  parallel  through 
the  state  about  where  Stroudsburg  and  Clearfield  are  situated, 
and  amounted  to  about  12,000,000  acres  or  42  percent  of  the  en- 
tire state  of  Pennsylvania.  Connecticut,  in  fact,  claimed  all  land 
of  that  width,  across  the  continent  from  sea  to  sea  as  far  as  King 
Charles  had  a  right  to  grant  it.  In  Ohio  this  claim  was  called 
the  "Western  Reserve." 

What  was  then  called  Tioga  Point,  is  now  the  city  of  Athens. 
The  city  of  Sayre  is  on  the  same  peninsula,  formed  by  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Tioga  (now  the  Chemung)  and  the  Susquehanna 
Rivers.  At  Tioga  Point,  now  Athens,  the  two  rivers  approach  to 
within  two  hundred  yards  of  each  other,  and  at  that  place  Gen. 
Sullivan  built  four  strong  block-houses,  stretching  across  from 
river  to  river,  which  was  known  as  Fort  Sullivan.  This  fort 
when  abandoned  by  Gen.  Sullivan  in  1779,  was  demolished  in 
order  that  it  might  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy. ^^ 

On  April  5,  1791,  Col.  Erwin  addressed  a  letter  to  Gov.  Thomas 
Mififlin,  setting  forth  that  he  was  molested,  presumably  by  squat- 
ters from  Connecticut,  in  the  peaceable  possession  of  his  lands, 

Ki  Luzerne  County  was  erected  Sept.  25,  1786,  out  of  parts  of  Northumber- 
land, and  Bradford  County  was  separated  from  Luzerne  and  Lycoming  Coun- 
ties in  1810.  Luzerne  was  at  first  called  Ontario  County.  In  March  1812,  it 
was  fully  organized  for  judicial  purposes  and  the  name  changed  to  Brad- 
ford County. 

17  Act  of  April   8,   1785 — Chapter   1153. 

18  Pennsylvania  Archives.  Second  Series,  Vol.  XVIII,  pp.   694-695. 

19  Frontier  Forts  of  Pennsylvania.  Vol.  1,  p.  456.  Historical  Collections, 
by  Sherman  Day,  p.  142.  History  of  Pennsylvania,  by  Dr.  W.  H.  Egle,  p. 
421.     History  of  Bucks  County,  by  Gen.  Davis,  pp.   5  and  6. 


COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN  441 

which  he  had  bought  and  patented.  He  complained  that  his  crops 
were  destroyed  and  stolen,  his  property  injured,  and  that  violent 
attacks  were  made  upon  his  person ;  at  one  time,  in  1789,  attack- 
ing him  with  the  handle  of  a  pitch-fork,  breaking  one  of  his  arms, 
and  otherwise  maltreating  him  so  that  he  barely  escaped  with  his 
life.^^  This  was  after  the  Decree  of  Trenton,  in  1782,  when  the 
controversy  was  decided  in  favor  of  Pennsylvania.  This  decision 
was  supposed  to  have  been  in  the  nature  of  a  compromise,  for  it 
was  recognized  that  Connecticut  had  the  prior  claim. 

On  the  evening  of  June  9,  1791,  while  resting  after  his  evening 
meal,  in  the  home  of  an  old  friend.  Sergeant  Daniel  McDufifee, 
whom  he  probably  took  up  from  Tinicum,  and  who  was  his  agent 
and  one  of  his  tenants,  where  he  made  his  temporary  home  while 
in  Luzerne  County,  h6  was  shot  through  an  open  door  and  died 
within  a  few  hours.  His  assassin  was  not  known  and  never  dis- 
covered, but  the  rival  claimants  between  Connecticut  and  Penn- 
sylvania were  supposed  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  murder.  One 
account  says  he  had  just  returned  from  visiting  his  Genesee 
lands  in  New  York,  accompanied  by  his  two  sons,  Samuel  and 
Francis,  and  that  his  assassin  was  supposed  to  have  been  a  squat- 
ter by  name  of  Thomas.  His  body  was  brought  back  to  Tini- 
cum Township  and  buried  in  his  private  burying-ground,  along 
the  banks  of  the  Delaware  River,  to  which  reference  has  already 
been  made. 

JAMES  FENNIMORE  COOPER's  NOVEL  "WYANDOTTE  OF  THE 
HUTTED    KNOLL". 

The  foregoing  history  of  the  Erwin  family  has  been  necessary 
to  show  that  the  life  and  death  of  Arthur  Erwin  may  have  sug- 
gested the  plot  of  Cooper's  novel  Wyandotte  or  the  Hutted  Knoll. 
The  tradition,  to  which  I  have  referred  is  as  follows: 

Among  some  loose  papers  found  among  my  father's  effects, 
was  one  in  which  he  records  a  tradition  handed  down  to  him  by 
his  grandfather,  Michael  Fackenthal  (1756-1846),  and  his  uncle, 
John  Fackenthal  (1790-1865),  which  in  substance  is,  that  while  a 
student  at  Lafayette  College  at  Easton,  Pa.,  in  1843,  this  novel  of 
Cooper's  came  out,  that  he  bought  a  copy,  carried  it  to  his  home 
at  Durham  and  loaned  it  to  his  uncle  John,  who  returned  it  in  a 
few  weeks,  and  seemed  to  be  quite  captivated  with  it.     Uncle 


442  COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN 

John  then  related  the  circumstances  of  the  assassination  of  Col. 
Arthur  Erwin,  and  also  told  him  some  of  the  leading  incidents  of 
his  life,  saying  that  Col.  Erwin  had  a  son  who  was  an  officer  in 
the  Whig  army,  and  another  son  allied  to  the  British  cause,  that 
Col.  Erwin  had  made  out  two  sets  of  deeds  for  his  property,  duly 
signed,  sealed  and  delivered,  which  however,  were  not  put  on 
record,  that  these  deeds  were  destroyed  after  the  close  of  the  war. 
The  arrangement  was  that  if  the  English  won,  that  is  put  down 
the  rebellion,  then  the  deeds  to  the  loyalist  were  to  be  recorded, 
and  if  the  Americans  won,  then  the  deeds  to  his  whig  son  were 
to  be  relied  upon  to  pass  the  property.  The  ultimate  share  of 
each  of  the  heirs  to  be  dependent  upon  honor  among  children. 

As  will  be  seen  by  the  foregoing,  Colonel  Erwin  was  himself 
in  the  Continential  army,  as  were  also  his  two  sons.  Lieutenant 
John,  the  oldest,  and  Captain  William,  the  third.  But  it  is  also 
a  fact  that  Joseph,  the  second  son,  was  engaged  in  questionable 
undertakings  during  the  war,  which,  reading  between  the  lines 
suggests  that  his  seafaring  schemes  amounted  to  smuggling  or 
blockade  running.  He  was  certainly  profiteering  and  may  have 
been  pirateering.  In  1778  he  was  attainted  of  treason  having 
joined  the  enemy  at  Philadelphia.  From  this  it  appears  that  he 
was  openly  hostile  to  the  American  cause.  At  that  time  he  had 
no  property  standing  in  his  own  name  and  therefore  none  to 
confiscate. 

There  is  no  way  of  verifying  the  statement  that  Colonel  Erwin 
made  out  two  sets  of  deeds,  but  the  tradition  handed  down  by 
Lieutenant  Michael  Fackenthal,  who  knew  him,  (they  owned  ad- 
joining tracts  of  land  in  Durham  Township),  and  who  was  himself 
a  soldier  in  the  "Flying  Camp,"  gives  credence  to  the  statement. 
My  father  certainly  believed  it  as  evidenced  by  his  making  a  writ- 
ten memorandum  of  it. 

I  also  desire  to  invite  attention  to  the  fact  that  Lieutenant  John 
Erwin  became  possessed  of  an  unusual  amount  of  real  estate  in 
Bucks  County,  one  tract  having  been  conveyed  to  him  at  the  age 
of  eighteen  years.  Three  other  tracts,  aggregating  2)7i  acres  and 
102  perches,  were  deeded  to  him  May  9,  1780,  at  a  time  when  he 
was  confined  in  a  British  prison  ship.  His  imprisonment  began 
in  1776  and  ended  in  1781,  surely  during  that  time  he  could  not 
have  been  buying  and  paying  for  real  estate.     The  tradition  is. 


COLOXEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN  443 

that  Joseph  sent  them  the  money  to  pay  for  the  properties  bought 
in  Bucks  County. 

It  is  also  a  fact,  that  for  some  reason  which  does  not  appear, 
his  third  son,  Wihiam,  did  not  participate  in  the  division  of  his 
father's  Bucks  County  real  estate,  although  he  was  the  only  child, 
at  that  time,  having  a  large  family.  John,  Joseph  and  Hugh  did 
not  marry.  This  suggests  that  certain  parcels  may  have  been 
transferred  to  William  during  his  father's  lifetime.  Making  such 
transfers  of  real  estate,  is  however  different  from  the  tradition, 
but  it  indicates  that  he  did  put  some  property  out  of  his  hands, 
and  I  have  such  confidence  in  my  father's  memory  that  I  believe 
there  were  unrecorded  deeds  as  well. 

In  the  novel,  Captain  Hugh  Willoughby  had  one  son  and  one 
daughter.  He  had  a  captain's  commission  in  the  English  army, 
in  consideration  of  resigning  which,  his  son  Robert  received  an 
ensign's  commission.  He  was  later  advanced  to  the  rank  of 
major.  The  novel  tells  of  his  gallant  services  in  the  English 
army,  during  the  Revolution.  Capt.  Willoughby's  only  daughter, 
Beulah,  married  Col.  Evert  Beekman,  who  distinguished  himself 
in  the  American  army.  The  novel,  of  course,  avoids  meetings 
between  these  two  opposing  soldiers. 

The  novel  relates  that  a  friendly  Indian,  by  name  of  Wyandotte, 
had  directed  Capt.  Willoughby  to  the  location  of  Hutted  Knoll. 
He  explained  that  the  cutting  of  an  old  beaver  dam  would  drain 
a  lake,  and  make  many  acres  of  rich  land,  surrounding  the  knoll, 
available  for  his  plantation,  which  would^  need  no  clearing. 

On  several  occasions  Capt.  Willoughby  had  punished  this  In- 
dian by  flogging  him,  and  although  apparently  friendly,  he  never 
forgave  these  insults. 

In  after  years,  during  the  \\'ar  for  Independence,  there  was  an 
Indian  uprising  at  Hutted  Knoll,  instigated  by  a  dissatisfied  em- 
ployee. Capt.  Willoughby  ventured  outside  of  his  stockade  and 
was  assassinated.  It  was  many  years  later  that  Wyandotte, 
then  an  old  man,  confessed  to  this  murder.  He  believed  that  in 
curing  the  sores  on  his  own  back  in  this  peculiar  manner,  he  had 
done  what  became  a  Turscarora  warrior.  During  the  attack  on 
Hutted  Knoll  he  remained  friendly  to  other  members  of  the  fami- 
ly, and  aided  in  its  defense,  as  Cooper  says — "He  never  forgot 
a  favor  or  forgave  an  injury."     In  this  attack,  Beulah,  the  wife 


444  COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN 

of  Col.  Beekman  lost  her  life,  and  Mrs.  Willoughby  died  from 
the  shock  of  her  husband's  tragic  death.  All  other  heirs  having 
passed  away,  Hutted  Knoll  descended  to  Robert  the  Tory  son, 
and  Evert,  Jr.,  the  only  child  of  Beulah.  "There  had  been  some 
rumors  of  confiscation  by  the  new  state,  and  Robert  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  would  be  safer  to  transfer  his  interest  in  the 
property  to  one  who  would  be  certain  to  escape  such  an  infliction 
rather  than  to  retain  it  in  his  own  hands,"  therefore  it  was  deeded 
to  little  Evert. 

Col.  Erwin  had  sons  with  interests  on  both  sides  of  the  conflict, 
and  by  deeding  his  property,  as  herein  explained,  attempted  to 
protect  it  against  seizure.  In  like  manner  the  Willoughby  prop- 
erty was  safeguarded  against  confiscation. 

Having  divided  famiHes,  with  sons  in  both  armies  was  a  com- 
mon occurrence  in  those  trying  times.  Novelists  have  often  ro- 
manced on  such  situations ;  as  witness  one  of  the  novels  by  our 
own  Caleb  E.  Wright,  Esq.,  of  Doylestown,  Pa.,  which  was 
founded  on  the  history  of  the  Hollenbach  family  of  Luzerne 
County,  and  Thackeray's  Virgitiians.  I  have  always  liked  the 
opening  sentence  of  the  Virginians,  which  referring  to  the  home 
of  William  H.  Prescott,  says — "On  the  library  wall  of  one 
of  the  most  famous  writers  of  America,  there  hang  two  crossed 
swords,  which  their  relatives  wore  in  the  great  War  of  Inde- 
pendence. The  one  sword  was  gallantly  drawn  in  the  service  of 
the  King,  the  other  was  the  weapon  of  a  brave  and  honored  re- 
publican soldier." 

My  father  concludes  his  memorandum  as  follows : 

"When  I  pointed  out  to  Uncle  John,  the  difference  in  the  locality  of 
Col.  Erwin's  assassination  and  that  of  Capt.  Willoughby,  one  in  Penn- 
sylvania at  the  junction  of  the  Tioga  and  Susquehanna  Rivers,  on  the 
New  York  state  line,  the  other  about  100  miles  to  the  northeast  thereof, 
in  Otsego  County  in  the  state  of  New  York,  on  the  Unadilla,  a  differ- 
ent branch  of  the  Susquehanna,  and  to  the  further  fact  that  one  was 
killed  by  squatters,  and  the  other  to  avenge  an  insult  to  a  drunken 
Indian. ,  he  said  that  that  made  no  difference,  that  slight  changes  of 
that  kind  were  a  novelist's  privilege,  and  that  he  had  no  doubt  what- 
ever, in  his  own  mind,  that  Cooper's  novel  was  founded  on  Erwin's 
history." 

In  his  preface  to  Wyandotte,  Cooper  says : 

"The  history  of  the  borders  is  filled  with  legends  of  the  sufferings  of 
isolated  families,  during  the  troubled  scenes  of  colonial  warfare.    Those 


COLONEL  ARTHUR  ERWIN  445 

which  we  now  offer  to  the  reader  are  distinctive  in  many  of  their  lead- 
ing facts,  if  not  rigidly  true  in  the  details.  The  first  alone  is  necessary 
to  the  legitimate  objects  of  fiction." 


"Perhaps  this  story  is  obnoxious  to  the  charges  of  a  slight  anachron- 
ism, in  representing  the  activity  of  the  Indians  a  year  earlier  than  any 
were  actually  employed  in  the  struggle  of  1775.  The  redman  had  his 
morality,  as  much  as  his  white  brother,  and  it  is  well  known  that  even 
Christian  ethics  are  colored  and  governed  by  standards  of  opinion  set 
up  on  purely  human  authority.  The  honesty  of  one  Christian  is  not 
always  that  of  another,  any  more  than  his  humanity,  truth,  fidelity  or 
faith." 

This  tradition  relates  to  our  own  county  of  Bucks,  and  more- 
over, this  paper  has  led  to  gathering  much  additional  information 
concerning  Colonel  Arthur  Erw^in,  one  of  its  most  distiguished 
citizens,  and  of  his  family  as  well,  and  appears  to  be  of  too  much 
value  not  to  be  recorded.  Mr.  Warren  S.  Ely  has  aided  me  in 
gathering  Erwin  family  history,  and  the  results  of  our  researches 
can  be  seen  on  file  in  the  library  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical 
Society  at  Doylestown,  Pa. 

In  addition  to  the  authorities  already  noted  the  following  were 
consulted : 

Edgar  Allen  Poe,  Review  of  Cooper's  novel  Wyandotte  or  the  Hutted  Knoll. 

History  of   Wyoming,  by   Charles   Miner,    1845. 

History  of   Wyoming,   by   Isaac   H.   Chapman. 

Annals  of  Luzerne,  by  Stewart  Pierce.  Philadelphia,   1860. 

Novels  by  Caleb  B.  Wright,  Esq.,  of  Doylestown,  Pa. 

Corning  and  Vicinity,  by  LTri  Mulford. 

Early  Times  on  the  Susquehanna,  by  Mrs.   George  A.   Perkins,  1870. 

"Brief  of  a  Title  in  Seventeen  Townships  in  Luzerne  County,"  by  Gov. 
Henry  M.  Hoyt.  Paper  read  before  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society, 
1879,  and  published  by  that  society  in  pamphlet  form. 

Bucks   County   Historical    Society.  Vol.    Ill,   p.    644. 

Pennsylvania   German   Society.  Vol.   VII,   pp.    223,    308. 

Historical  Register  of  Pennsylvania.  Jan.   1884;  Vol.   II,  p.   1  et  seq. 

Hazard's  Reoister — Wyoming  Lands.  Vol.  VII,  p.   273. 

History  of  the  Town  and  Village  of  Painted  Post  and  of  the  Town  of  Er- 
win, by  Charles  H.  Erwin,  1874. 

Magazine  of  American  History.  Vol.   XII,  p.   234  et  seq. 


I 


Old-Fashioned  Garden  Flowers. 

BY  GEORGE    MACREYNOLDS,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Friends   Meeting  House,    Solebury,    October    14,    1922.) 

N  his  celebrated  letter  to  the  committee  of  the  "Free  Society 
of  Traders  of  London",  written  from  "Philadelphia,  the  10th 
of  the  sixth  month,  called  August,  1683",  William  Penn  said: 

•  "There  are  divers  plants,  that  not  only  the  Indians  tell  us,  but  we 
have  had  occasion  to  prove,  by  swellings,  burnings,  cuts,  &c.,  that  they 
are  of  great  virtue,  suddenly  curing  the  patient;  and,  for  smell,  I  have 
observed  several,  especially  one,  the  wild  myrtle;  the  others  I  know  not 
what  to  call,  but  are  most  fragrant. 

The  woods  are  adorned  with  lovely  flowers,  for  colour,  greatness, 
figure  and  variety.  I  have  seen  the  gardens  of  London  best  stored 
with  that  sort  of  beauty,  but  think  they  may  be  improved  by  our 
woods.     I  have  sent  a  few  to  a  person  of  quality  this  year  for  trial". 

Beautiful,  indeed,  must  have  been  the  flora  of  our  forest  prime- 
val if  Penn,  connoisseur  as  he  was  of  many  things  that  added  to 
the  joy  of  living,  thought  "our  woods"  contained  blooms  worthy 
of  a  place  in  the  best  "gardens  of  London"  to  be  planted  by  "a 
person  of  quality".  What  would  we  not  give  to  have  a  glimpse 
into  those  old  "gardens  of  London"  of  two  hundred  thirty-nine 
years  ago? 

Perhaps  if  we  had  the  freedom  of  London's  charming  old 
bookshops,  we  might  plagiarize  a  perfectly  good  description  of 
the  English  garden  of  Penn's  time.  Not  having  that  advantage, 
I  have  had  recourse  to  the  Fifth  Edition  of  Chambers'  Ency- 
clopaedia, dated  1741,  a  copy  of  which  is  among  the  old  books 
in  my  library.  By  combining  several  notations  in  this  old  volume, 
it  has  been  possible  to  reconstruct,  as  it  were,  a  pretty  accurate 
plan  of  an  English  garden  of  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, which  may  be  regarded  as  the  forerunner  of  pretty  much 
all  the  more  ambitious  old  gardens  in  this  country. 

There  were  three  kinds  of  English  gardens  of  that  period,  ac- 
cording to  this  old  encyclopaedia  : 

"Flower-gardens,  fruit-gardens  and  kitchen-gardens,  the  first  for 
pleasure  and  ornament;  and  therefore  placed  in  the  most  conspicuous 
parts,   the   two   latter   for    service,   and   therefore    placed    in    by-places." 


OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN   FLOWERS  447 

Their  form  was  "a  square,  or  rather  oblong — leading  from  the  middle 
of  the  house,  with  a  gravel  walk  in  the  midst,  narrow  grass  borders  on 
each  side,  and  on  either  side  of  these,  rows  of  variety  of  winter  greens". 

Though  many  gardens  were  made  on  regular  or  conventional 
lines,  those  regarded  as  the  most  beautiful  were  the  irregular 
gardens.     This  quaint  authority  says : 

"Indeed  an  irregularity  is  easily  hid  in  a  large  garden  by  long  walks, 
and  tall  hedges,  interrupting  a  distant  view:  and  the  little  corners,  and 
triangular  spaces,  may  be  agreeably  filled  up  with  borders  of  flowers, 
dwarf  trees,  flowering  shrubs,  and  evergreens.  Nor  is  it  prudent  to  be 
solicitous  to  throw  the  whole  garden  into  a  single  view;  as  irregulari- 
ties, and  unevenness,  afford  many  uncommon,  pretty  devices." 

The  soil  was 

"A  deep,  rich,  black  mould,"  sandy  land  being  considered  "warm  and 
forward",  and  "chalky"  land  as  "cold  and  backward".  The  proper 
depth  of  the  soil  was  considered  to  be  "three  feet  deep,  but  less  than 
two  is  not  sufificient". 

"The  chief  furniture  of  pleasure  gardens",  the  old  account  continues, 
"are  parterres,  vistas,  glades,  groves,  compartiments,  quidnuncs,  ver- 
dant halls,   arbour  work,   labyrinths,   cabinets,   cascades,   terraces,   &c". 

So  we  see  the  flower  gardens  of  England  in  Penn's  day  may 
have  been  as  elaborate  as  Duke's  Park  or  no  more  pretentious 
than  some  of  our  more  modest  flower  gardens  today. 

\\'ithout  a  .great  deal  more  research  than  I  have  had  time  to 
make,  it  is  difificult  to  get  a  list  of  the  flowers  in  those  old  Eng- 
lish gardens,  but  here  are  some  of  them,  given  in  the  nomencla- 
ture and  spelling  of  the  day :  Anemonies,  Dafifodils,  Hyacinths, 
Tulips,  Junquils,  Cowslips.  Primroses,  Pinks,  Gilly-flowers, 
Daisies,  Campanulas,  Poppies,  Sun-flowers,  Oculus  Christi,  In- 
dian Pinks,  Roses,  Pansies,  Flower-gentle,  Rosemary,  Sage. 
Thyme,  Geranium,  Althaea,  Borrage,  Buglos,  Dead-nettle,  Bear's- 
ear,  Horehound  and  Clary. 

Many  of  the  these  old  flowers  were  introduced  by  the  early 
settlers  into  American  gardens.  We  will  now  step  into  one  of 
these  old  A,merican  gardens,  and,  without  adhering  to  any  method 
or  plan,  try  to  describe  it.  Old  gardens  were  as  varied  in  form 
and  flora  as  the  individual  tastes  of  the  owners.  Most  of  them 
had  sundials,  some  of  them  more  than  one.  and  these  were  the 
center  of  some  floral  decoration,  usually  of  peculiar  delicacy  or 
unique  rarity.     Most  gardens  had  their  beds  of  "yarbs" — Tansy. 


448  OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN   FLOWERS 

Sage,  Mints,  etc. — ornamental,  but  also  useful  as  seasoning,  or 
to  give  a  tang  to  the  otherwise  rather  mild  home-distilled  liquors 
of  those  days. 

Nearly  every  old  garden  that  made  any  pretensions  at  all  to 
size  and  beauty  had  its  Judas  Tree,  a  handsome  low  tree,  rarely 
twenty  feet  in  height.  Downing,  in  his  fine  old  book  on  Theory 
and  Practice  of  Landscape  Gardening,  says  that  "the  name  of 
Judas  tree  appears  to  have  been  whimsically  bestowed  by  Gerard, 
an  old  English  gardener,  who  described  it  in  1596,  and  relates 
that  'this  is  the  tree  whereon  Judas  did  hange  himselfe,  and  not 
upon  the  elder  tree,  as  it  is  said'."  The  Judas  tree,  sometimes 
called  "Red-bud",  was  considered  one  of  the  most  ornamental  of 
shrubs,  with  exactly  heart-shaped  leaves,  of  pleasingly  green  tint, 
and  clusters  of  pretty  pink  blossoms  close  to  the  branches,  early 
in  spring,  before  the  leaves  expand.  Two  species  were  planted 
here,  one  American  (Cercis  canadensis),  and  the  other  European 
(Cercis  siliquastrum).  The  species  bear  close  resemblance.  The 
Judas  tree  is  still  found  on  lawns,  but  rarely  now  in  flower 
gardens. 

In  the  days  of  our  grandmothers  and  great-grandmothers,  the 
hop  vine  was  an  institution.  No  flower  or  kitchen  garden  was 
complete  without  it.  It  usually  occupied  one  corner  of  the  en- 
closure, and,  like  Mr.  Finney's  turnip. 

It  grew,  and  it  grew. 
Till  it  could  grow  no  taller, 

from  spring  until  autumn,  when  it  covered  a  pole  of  almost  any 
desired  height.  Every  housewife  of  those  days  used  hops  for 
yeast  in  making  bread.  Hops  were  also  used  extensively  then  in 
home-brewing  of  beer,  ale,  porter  and  small  beer,  the  small  beer 
being  made  from  the  malt  after  the  ale  was  made.  Nearly  every 
family  of  that  day  had  a  large  kettle  in  which  they  boiled  clothes. 
This  served  for  the  "copper",  and  a  common  pail  with  a  hole 
bored  through  the  bottom,  another  pail  that  served  as  a  ferment- 
ing tun,  and  a  five-gallon  keg  to  contain  the  liquor,  completed  the 
distilling  outfit.  But  aside  from  the  uses  to  which  hops  were  put. 
the  hope  vine  was  a  graceful  and  ornamental  feature  of  the  old 
garden.    The  hop  pole  and  vine  are  now  rarely  seen. 

Climbing  plants  were  favorites  in  old  gardens,  which  had  their 
beautiful  trellises  and  arbors  upon  which  they  were  "trained". 


OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN   FLOWERS  449 

One  of  the  favorites  was  the  Trumpet  Creeper,  still  seen  in 
some  gardens.  There  are  two  kinds  of  Trumpet  Creepers,  both 
growing  wild  in  the  southern  states.  One  is  the  Bignonia  radi- 
cans,  a  picturesque  plant,  climbing  like  Ivy  and  Virginia  Creeper, 
by  means  of  rootlets.  It  has  pinnate  leaves,  and  the  trumpet- 
shaped  flowers,  sometimes  five  to  six  inches  long,  scarlet  without 
and  orange-colored  within,  grow  in  clusters.  This  is  the  Trumpet 
Creeper  of  the  old  gardens.  Botanists  have  taken  it  out  of  the 
Bignonias  and  placed  it  in  another  genus. 

The  other  Trumpet  Creeper,  the  Bignonia  careolata  of  Gray, 
is  smooth  and  has  evergreen  leaves  in  the  south.  The  flowers 
are  two  inches  long,  grow  from  the  axils  of  the  leaves  and  are 
orange-red  outside  and  yellow  inside,  blooming  in  spring.  This 
plant,  I  believe,  was  a  later  introduction  into  the  north,  and  is 
more  or  less  frequently  seen  at  present. 

Wistaria  was  cultivated  in  old  gardens,  and  was  much  more 
common  then  than  now.  It  belongs  to  the  extensive  Pulse  or 
Legume  family.  As  is  well  known,  the  plant  was  named  for 
Professor  Wistar,  of  Philadelphia.  There  are  also  two  species 
of  this  plant,  the  native,  which  is  wild  in  the  western  and  south- 
ern states,  and  an  introduced  Chinese  species,  which  is  larger  and 
ranker.  The  pendulous  purple  blooms  are  very  handsome  in 
spring  just  as  the  leaves  begin  to  develop.  We  now  have  a  white 
species,  which,  I  believe,  was  vmknown  to  our  ancestors. 

Climbing  roses !  Here  we  run  up  against  one  of  the  pardon- 
able weaknesses  of  our  grandmothers.  They  doted  on  them,  and 
they  had  some  beauties,  too,  in  their  charming  old  gardens.  Two 
of  their  favorite  climbing  roses  were  not  hardy  in  the  north,  the 
Multifloras  and  the  Noisettes,  and  they  had  to  be  protected  in 
winter.  Two  of  the  most  popular  hardy  climbers  were  the  Michi- 
gan and  the  Boursalt  roses.  The  Michigan  rose  was  so  named 
because  it  was  first  discovered  growing  wild  in  that  state. 
Downing  says  of  it :  "The  single  Michigan  is  a  most  compact 
and  vigorous  grower,  and  often,  in  its  wild  haunts  in  the  west, 
clambers  over  the  tops  of  the  tall  forest  trees  and  decks  them 
with  its  abundant  pale  purple  flowers".  This  single  variety  was 
gradually  abandoned  when  the  more  gorgeous  "double"  variety, 
the  "Beauty  of  the  Prairies",  with  its  rich  buds  and  blossoms  of 
deep  rose  color,  was  developed  by  rose-growers.     The  Boursalt 


450  OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN   FLOWERS 

roses  were  noted  for  their  large  clusters  of  crimson  bloom.  The 
Blush  and  Elegans  were  still  finer  varieties  and  were  found  in 
many  gardens. 

Unrivaled  in  delicacy  and  charm  of  tints  as  are  our  native 
bush  roses,  there  is  no  record  that  any  of  them  ever  found  a  place 
in  the  old  flower  garden.  Indeed,  it  is  questionable  whether  any 
of  them  would  thrive  under  cultivation.  When  our  ancestors 
came  to  America  they  brought  their  bush  roses  (as  well  as  a 
number  of  other  flowers).  The  English  brought  their  Sweet- 
briar,  or  Eglantine ;  the  Huguenots  brought  their  Gallica,  or 
French  rose,  and  the  Germans  brought  the  Canina,  or  Dog  rose. 

These  were  the  garden  roses  of  our  forefathers,  and  for  many 
years  they  were  possibly  the  only  roses  grown  in  the  very  old  gar- 
dens of  America.  They  were  often  planted  along  the  kitchen- 
garden  walks  in  rows,  and  under  cultivation  and  the  womanly 
care  and  love  showered  upon  them,  I  can  imagine  they  were  very 
beautiful ;  but  they  were  single  roses,  the  rose  as  we  know  the 
gorgeous  bloom  of  the  modern  florists  being  unknown  to  our  fore- 
fathers. Soon  after  they  were  brought  to  this  country  the  Sweet- 
briar  and  Dog-roses  escaped  from  cultivation  into  the  meadows, 
woodlands  and  pastures  and  along  fence  rows,  and  such  places 
are  the  only  locations  where  we  will  find  the  queen  of  flowers 
of  our  ancestors  growing  today.  Both  of  thes€  rose  escapes  are 
found  plentifully  in  Bucks  county.  My  botanist  friend,  J.  Kirk 
Leatherman,  president  of  the  Doylestown  Botanical  Club,  calls 
my  attention  to  this  curious  fact:  While  the  Dog-rose,  was 
brought  to  the  up-county  townships  by  the  German  settlers  and 
the  Sweet-briar  to  the  middle  and  down-county  townships  by  the 
English  settlers,  as  escapes  the  Dog-rose  is  the  common  one 
down  county  and  the  Sweet-briar  the  common  one  up  county ! 

Gradually  the  Sweet-briar  was  developed  into  "semi-double 
flowered",  "blush  double-flowered'"  and  yellow-flowered  roses, 
and  these  were  the  old-fashioned  bush  roses  of  our  grandmothers' 
gardens.  But  not  the  only  ones.  One  of  the  favorite  old  garden 
hardy  roses  was  the  Damask  Rose,  which  is  said  to  have  been 
superior  for  its  elegance  and  fragrance.  The  Damask  Rose  is 
said  to  be  the  rose  which  suggested  the  term,  "Queen  of  Flowers", 
as  applied  to  roses.  Old  botanists  catalogued  it  as  Rosa  centi- 
folia,  or  "Rose  of  a  Hundred  Leaves".     Moss  Roses  were  also 


OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN   FLOWERS  451 

found  in  all  well-appointed  old-time  gardens  and  were  very  much 
more  popular  then  than  now. 

No  old-fashioned  garden  was  complete  without  a  Lilac  bush. 
What  a  wealth  of  sentiment  clings  around  this  princely  shrub ! 
There  may  be  more  beautiful  floral  sights  than  a  lilac  bush  in 
full  bloom  in  spring,  but  if  so,  I  plead  ignorance.  As  a  toddling 
boy  it  captivated  my  admiration.  Our  neighbors  had  beautiful 
lilac  bushes,  and  we  had  none,  and  I  was  envious.  On  my  first 
venture  along  the  highway  to  the  little  red  village  schoolhouse, 
I  remember  standing  under  our  neighbor's  lilac  bush  along  the 
roadside,  entranced  in  admiration  of  the  huge  purple  clusters  so 
high  and  so  far  beyond  my  weak  little  reach.  Heaven  could  have 
showered  no  greater  blessing  than  to  have  permitted  one  of  those 
beautiful  blossoms  to  have  fallen  on  my  copper-toed  boots.  I 
also  remember  that  I  stood  in  admiration  so  long  that  when  I 
finally  reached  the  little  red  schoolhouse,  I  wondered  why  the 
sour-visage  schoolmaster  administered  so  severe  a  punishment  for 
simply  stopping  by  the  wayside  to  admire  a  lovely  flower. 

It  will  be  possible  here  to  refer  only  briefly  to  ordinary  flowers 
that  made  up  the  old-fashioned  garden  and  to  name  only  a  few 
of  them.  Among  the  more  popular  shrubs  were  the  Forsythia, 
the  Spireas,  especially  the  one  known  as  the  Bridal  Wreath ;  the 
Japonica,  and  the  one  called  "Sweet  Shrub",  whose  sweet-scented 
dark  maroon-colored  blooms  our  grandmothers  folded  like  lav- 
ender in  their  lace  handkerchiefs  for  Saturday  nights  and  Sunday. 

Then  there  was  the  New  England  Aster,  some  clumps  with 
violet-purple  and  others  with  rose-purple  flowers.  The  Prim- 
rose was  very  popular.  There  were  several  varieties — the  large- 
flowered  Chinese  kind ;  the  true  primrose,  the  grandiflora ;  sev- 
eral sorts  of  Polyanthus  primroses,  with  flowers  enlarged  and 
vari-colored,  and  last  but  not  least,  the  English  Cowslip.  Our 
grandmothers  understood  primrose  culture  better  than  we  do. 

Hollyhocks,  which  came  originally  from  Syria,  but  found  their 
greatest  development  in  Holland,  were  much  cultivated  in  old 
flower  gardens.  The  common  Periwinkle  from  Europe ;  the 
Jerusalem  Oak,  or  Feather  Geranium,  a  plant  of  the  Goosefoot 
genus,  sweet  scented ;  Prince's  Feather,  plants  three  to  eight  feet 
high,  belonging  to  the  Polygonum  or  Knotwood  genus,  with  dense, 
cylindrical,  nodding  spikes  of  rose-colored  flowers,  and  two  red 


452  OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN   FLOWERS 

Amaranths,  from  India  and  Mexico,  tall  plants,  also  with  long 
slender  flowers,  but  red  and  drooping — all  these  had  a  conspicuous 
place  in  the  old-time  garden. 

Many  plants  that  have  become  troublesome  "weeds"  and  are 
now  outcasts  were  favorite  flowers  in  the  old  gardens.  Such 
are  the  little  Curled  Mallow,  once  regarded  as  a  great  ornament ; 
the  Ox-eye  Daisy,  now  the  despised  of  the  farmer;  European 
Loosestrife,  Moneywort,  and  many  others,  all  common  weeds  in 
our  fields. 

Doylestown,  whose  history  goes  back  two  centuries,  was  noted 
in  olden  times  for  its  flower  gardens.  One  by  one  they  have  dis- 
appeared. One  of  the  last  to  go  was  located  in  the  rear  of  the 
historic  dwelling  house  at  Broad  and  East  State  streets,  now 
owned  by  Dr.  C.  Louis  Siegler.  The  old  mansion  was  built,  I 
believe,  by  the  Rev.  Uriah  DuBois,  and  before  it  was  "improved" 
it  was  a  mystic  dwelling,  with  secret  corridors  and  basement 
passage-ways  and  concealed  staircases.  It  is  reputed  to  have  been 
one  of  the  stations  of  the  "Underground  Railway".  The  beauti- 
ful flower  garden  in  the  rear  along  Board  street  was  probably 
started  by  DuBois  early  in  the  last  century.  As  it  was  still  a 
place  of  great  beauty  as  late  as  twenty-five  years  ago,  persons  in 
this  audience  may  remember  it. 

The  only  old-time  flower  garden  now  in  Doylestown,  of  which 
I  have  knowledge,  is  that  on  the  old  Rutledge  Thornton  property, 
corner  of  Church  and  East  State  streets,  now  owned  by  Dr. 
George  T.  Hayman.  It  is  a  small  garden  and  was  probably  laid 
out  by  Mr.  Thornton,  Doylestown's  one-time  leading  merchant, 
about  1850.  Subsequent  owners,  including  Dr.  Hayman,  have 
taken  great  pride  in  maintaining  the  quaintness  of  the  whole 
property  and  keeping  the  old  garden  intact.  The  garden  is  bi- 
sected by  a  sod  path  leading  to  Church  street,  entrance  being 
obtained  through  a  latticed  arched  trellis  supporting  a  climbing 
rose  of  forgotten  species.  Flanking  the  sides  are  a  grape  arbor 
and  another  latticed  trellis  over  which  trails  a  clematis  vine.^ 

Soon  after  the  Thornton  garden  was  laid  out,  there  went  out 
of  existence  the  largest  and  handsomest  old-fashioned  garden  in 
Doylestown.     From  the  lips  of  an  old  man  who  had  played  in 

1  Louis  Buckman  was  one-time  owner  of  tliis  property.  Since  this  paper 
was  written,  I  have  learned  that  the  garden  mentioned  was  laid  out  by  Mr. 
Buckman,  and  not  by  Rutledge  Thornton. 


OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN   FLOWERS  453 

this  garden  as  a  child  I  learned  its  story  and  transcribed  it  into 
a  "History  of  Doylestown  Township"  which  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  writing  in  1908  for  a  Doylestown  newspaper.  With  the  in- 
dulgence of  the  audience  I  will  repeat  the  old  gentleman's  de- 
scription : 

What  is  now  known  as  Emil  Peiter's  bakery,  on  East  State 
street,  east  of  Main  street,  was  in  1850  and  long  before  that 
date  the  residence  of  Timothy  Smith,  contractor  and  stonemason, 
who  did  the  stone-work  on  the  Bucks  county  courthouse  of  1812. 
Smith  owned  all  the  land  from  his  dwelling  to  the  Samuel  Solli- 
day  jewelry  store,  now  occupied  as  a  dwelling  by  Lycurgus 
Bryan.  The  Smith  property  fronted  about  170  feet  on  State 
street,  and  about  110  feet  of  this  front,  extending  back  from  the 
street  nearly  half  a  square,  was  occupied  by  the  flower  garden, 
designed  probably  by  Mr.  Smith  before  1830.  The  garden  was 
crossed  by  walks,  bordered  with  low  boxwood  hedges,  and  filled 
with  all  sorts  of  old-fashioned  flowers — dafiPodils,  narcissus, 
primroses,  jesmine  and  many  varieties  of  old  sweet-scented  roses — 
"Whatsoe'er   of  beauty 

Yearns  and   yet  reposes. 
Blush,  and  bloom,  and  sweet  breath. 

Took  the  form  of  roses" — 

and  hyacinths,  and  cowslips,  and  harebells,  and  lark-spurs,  and 
johnny-jump-ups,  and  heart's-ease ;  heart's  ease — 

"How  I  used  to  love  thee,  simple  flower, 
To  love  thee,  dearly,  when  a  boy; 
For  thou  didst  seem  in  childhood's  hour 
The  smiling  type  of  childhood's  joy." 

And  around  the  edges  of  the  great  beds  of  bloom,  hiding  in  the 
half  sunlit  shelter  of  graceful  over-shadowing  shrubs,  was  that 
modest  little  yellow-flowered  plant,  still  seen  about  old  country 
doorways  and  garden  walls,  and  to  which  Wordsworth  sang  his 
madrigal — 

"Pansies,   lilies,   king-cups,   daisies. 

Let  them  live  upon  their  praises; 

There's  a  flower  that  shall   be  mine, 

'Tis  the  little  Celandine." 

This  old  garden  passed  out  of  existence  in   1855,  when  the 
land  was  needed  for  dwellings  and  store  houses. 

Lack  of  time  and  the  limitations  of  this  paper  have  permitted 


454  WELLS   AND    PUMPS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

but  small  detailed  description  of  old-fashioned  garden  flowers 
and  old-time  gardens.  To  those  who  desire  to  pursue  the  sub- 
ject further,  I  would  commend  two  books : 

A  Treatise  on  the  Theory  and  Practice  of  Landscape  Garden- 
ing, Adapted  to  North  America.  By  A.  J.  Downing,  1855.  New 
York:  C.  M.  Saxton  &  Co.,  Agricultural  Book  Publishers. 

Old-time  Gardens,  Nezvly  Set  Forth.  By  Alice  Morse  Earle. 
1901.     The  MacMillan  Company. 

The  first-named  book  is  out  of  print  and  difficult  to  obtain. 
Delightful  David  Grayson  quotes  Downing  afifectionately,  giving 
his  work  the  distinction  it  deserves. 

The  second  book  named  is  not  only  a  charming  volume,  cover- 
ing the  subject  in  much  minuteness,  but  it  should  possess  special 
interest  to  members  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  be- 
cause a  number  of  its  many  beautiful  illustrations  were  made 
from  photographs  taken  by  Mary  F.  C.  Paschall,  the  talented 
wife  of  the  late  Alfred  Paschall,  long-time  secretary  of  this 
society. 


Wells  and  Pumps  in  Bucks  County. 

BY    JAMES    H.    FITZGERALD,    MECHANICS    VALLEY,    PA. 
(Friends  Meeting  House,  Solebury,  October  14,  1922.) 

MANY    of    the    early    settlers    built    their    dwellings    near 
springs  and  in  many  instances  these  were  located  in  val- 
leys and  at  considerable  distances  from  the  main  roads, 
which  were  subsequently  laid  out.     The  Old  York,  Easton  and 
Bethlehem  roads  followed  higher  ground  or  ridges  in  order  to 
avoid  traversing  sloughs  or  swampy  ground. 

As  sites  near  springs  were  limited,  and  settlements  increased, 
the  digging  of  wells  was  begun  in  order  to  secure  a  convenient 
and  adequate  water  supply.  When  and  where  the  first  well  was 
dug  in  our  county  by  the  early  settlers  (presuming  that  the  na- 
tives did  not  dig  wells),  would  be  interesting  information.  Al- 
though I  have  been  unable  to  supply  this  data,  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that  the  first  wells  were  dug  along  or  near  the  main  high- 
ways.    Many  of  these  have  been  abandoned  or  their  use  discon- 


WELLS   AND    PUMPS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  455 

tinned,  for  sanitary  reasons,  especially  in  towns  where  a  modern 
water  supply  has  been  provided  by  corporations  or  municipalities. 
One  of  these  wells  was  discovered  in  front  of  Lenape  Hall, 
Doylestown  (southeast  corner  Main  and  State  streets),  when 
the  Pennsylvania  State  Highway  Department  was  supervising 
the  construction  of  a  cement  road  between  Philadelphia  and 
Easton.  There  was  originally  a  tunnel  from  the  cellar  of  a  hotel 
on  this  site  to  the  well.  Tunnels  like  this  were  sometimes  used 
to  store  butter  and  milk  during  the  summer  months.  Another 
old  w^ell  was  discovered  in  Doylestown  while  excavations  were 
being  conducted  for  the  erection  of  the  McLaughlin  garage  on 
the  west  side  of  Main  street  above  Oakland  avenue.  Another 
old  well  in  Doylestown  with  hand-made  pump  and  pump-house 
is  on  what  was  formerly  the  Magill  farm,  now  56  South  Main 
street.  The  dwelling  on  this  property  is  also  interesting  on  ac- 
count of  the  excellence  of  its  construction  and  the  interior  wood 
work,  hand-made  hardware  and  locks.  The  average  depth  of 
these  and  several  others  wells  in  Doylestown  was  thirty  feet. 

At  first  the  digging  of  a  well  simply  meant  excavating  until 
an  adequate  water  supply  was  apparently  secured,  but  experience 
taught  that  in  order  to  secure  a  supply  of  pure  water,  without 
contamination  from  surface  drainage,  a  depth  of  at  least  twenty- 
five  feet  was  desirable.  The  early  settler  was  a  "jack-of-all- 
trades"  and  therefore,  dug  his  own  well.  A  few  men,  gaining 
knowledge  by  experience  as  workmen,  became  professional  well- 
diggers  and  one  of  the  objects  of  the  writer,  in  gathering  data  for 
this  paper,  was  to  locate  them  and  secure  their  testimony. 

Robert  Birmingham,  an  aged  resident  of  Doylestown,  had  fifty 
years  experience  in  directing  the  digging  of  wells  for  water.  He 
was  born  in  New  Jersey  and  the  first  well  dug  by  him  in  Bucks 
county  was  for  John  Tomlinson  near  Newtown.  The  depth  of 
this  well  was  thirty-one  feet.  Mr.  Birmingham  says  that  a  well 
should  be  eight  feet  in  diameter  in  order  to  give  room  for  the 
use  of  a  pick  and  shovel.  Wells  were  dug  in  the  late  summer 
or  early  fall  months  when  there  was  a  minimum  rainfall.  Some- 
times an  apparently  lasting  supply  would  be  secured,  but  after 
pumping  out  w^ould  prove  to  be  what  was  called  a  pocket.  Dig- 
ging would  be  resumed  until  a  lasting  supply  \vas,  without  doubt, 


456  WELLS    AND   PUMPS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

secured.  As  the  work  proceeded,  the  excavation  was  cased  with 
planks  and  braced  in  order  to  prevent  caving. 

Permanent  casing  or  walHng  up  of  the  well  began  at  the  bot- 
tom. Stones  or  hard  bricks  w^ere  generally  used.  The  wall  was 
from  twelve  to  eighteen  inches  thick  and  the  material  laid,  so  as 
to  resist  pressure,  just  as  the  stones  of  an  arch  are  laid  to  sustain 
weight.  Mr.  Brimingham  also  had  experience  in  deepening 
wells  that  had  become  dry.  A  well  forty-five  feet  in  depth  on  the 
property  of  John  Price  on  the  top  of  Iron  Hill  was  dry.  He 
went  there  in  July  and  cased  it  with  planks  for  a  distance  of  at 
least  twenty-five  feet  from  the  bottom.  A  hole  four  feet  in 
depth  was  drilled  in  the  center  of  the  bottom  and  after  a  charge 
of  two  pounds  of  dynamite  was  used,  water  arose  to  a  depth 
of  eight  feet.  Cornelius  Singer,  residing  between  Thatchers  and 
Applebachsville,  is  another  expert  well  digger. 

Mr.  Birmingham  witnessed  the  use  of  divining  rods,  green 
boughs  of  apple  or  hazel,  in  eflforts  to  locate  a  water  supply 
but  was  somewhat  skeptical  as  to  their  practical  use.  Dr.  Frank 
B.  Swartzlander,  of  Doylestown,  says  that  Herodotus,  the  Greek 
historian  (490-409  B.  C.)  records  the  use  of  this  device.  This 
subject  was  discussed  in  a  paper  by  Mr.  Mann  and  I  cannot  add 
anything  to  it.^ 

When  I  was  a  small  boy  I  was  lowered  down  into  a  well,  forty 
feet  deep,  for  the  purpose  of  cleaning  it.  In  order  to  determine 
whether  there  was  foul  air  in  the  well  or  not,  a  lighted  candle, 
placed  in  a  bucket,  was  slowly  lowered  into  it.  If  the  flame  was 
extinguished  it  indicated  that  there  would  be  danger  in  descend- 
ing. In  this  instance  the  air  was  pure  and  cold.  About  eighteen 
inches  of  sand,  also  a  number  of  small  articles,  carelessly  dropped 
into  the  well,  were  removed. 

Wells  are  sometimes  used  for  refrigerative  purposes  and  but- 
ter, milk  and  other  foodstuffs,  placed  in  proper  receptacles,  are 
lowered  into  them.  Game,  especially  partridges,  is  said  to  im- 
prove in  flavor  and  tenderness  if  suspended  in  a  well  for  about 
three  days. 

Several  vaults  or  caves  can  be  found  in  Bucks  county  so  con- 
structed that  the  well  opens  into  them.  The  pump  stock  extends 
to  the  ground  level  into  an  enclosure  called  a  pump  house.    Some 

1  See  paper  by  Horace  M.  Mann,  page  ante. 


WELLS   AND   PUMPS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  457 

pump  houses  are  roomy  and  used  as  laundries  or  outside  kitch- 
ens. There  is  such  a  combination  on  a  farm  located  on  the  Pub- 
ble  Hill  road,  Doylestown  township,  owned  by  Wallace  Dungan 
of  Doylestown  borough. 

One  of  the  deepest  of  wells  dug  in  Bucks  county,  by  the  primi- 
tive method,  is  located  on  the  former  Gustavus  A.  Cox  farm, 
along  the  Old  York  road  in  Buckingham  township,  now  owned 
by  Robert  Grace.  This  well  is  reported  by  some  to  be  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  feet  deep  and  by  others  one  hundred  and 
ninety  feet.  Some  say  that  it  was  a  shaft  dug  by  prospectors 
for  iron  ore,  but  Mrs.  J.  Willis  Atkinson,  granddaughter,  of 
Gustavus  A.  Cox,  of  Buckingham,  says  that  it  was  dug  to  secure 
water  to  wash  iron  ore  taken  from  excavations  nearby.  This 
was  in  the  seventies  of  the  last  century  and  although  a  young  girl 
at  the  time,  Mrs.  Atkinson  remembers  the  digging  of  the  well 
under  the  direction  of  the  Bethlehem  Iron  Company.  Joseph 
West,  of  Buckingham,  a  tinsmith  and  still  active  in  his  line,  says 
that  he  made  tubes  of  tin  that  were  used  in  blasting  in  this  well. 
These  tubes  varied  in  length  from  three  to  seven  feet  with  a  di- 
ameter of  about  two  inches.  A  smaller  tube  about  three  feet  in 
length  was  soldered  on  the  larger  one.  In  this  small  tube  a  slow 
burning  fuse  was  placed  enabling  the  workmen  to  get  out  of  the 
well  before  the  gunpowder  in  the  larger  tube  became  ignited. 
These  lengthy  tubes  were  used  because  the  charge  had  to  be  in- 
serted in  mud  and  water.  The  tin  used  was  always  the  thinnest 
in  stock  to  allow  lateral  expansion.  A  steam  engine  was  used  to 
operate  the  windlass  and  pump  seepage-water  from  the  well  and 
air  into  it.  During  the  process  of  digging  this  well,  it  was  cased 
with  heavy  planks  and  a  ladder  made  from  scantlings  reached 
from  top  to  bottom.  The  well  is  not  now  in  use  and  is  partly 
filled. 

Today  there  are  three  types  of  wells,  namely :  first,  the  open 
well  dug  by  hand  labor ;  second,  the  driven  well  and,  third,  the 
drilled  and  cased  wells.  The  last  two  named  are  called  Artesian 
wells,  originating  in  Artois,  France.  The  cased  well  is  the  best 
type  of  the  three  as  no  impurities  can  enter  from  the  surface. 
This  type  of  well  is  drilled  through  the  various  layers  of  surface 
soil,  clay  and  rock  until  a  stream  of  w^ater  is  reached.  The  hole 
is  lined' with  an  iron  or  steel  pipe  casing,  inserted  as  the  work  pro- 


458  WELLS   AND    PUMPS    IX    BUCKS    COUNTY 

ceeds,  and  keeps  out  all  surface  water.  To  determine  when  a 
lasting  supply  has  been  reached,  the  same  principle  applies  as  in 
the  digging  of  an  open  well.  Operation  is  suspended  and  a  pump 
is  used,  sometimes  for  two  or  three  days  to  determine  whether 
or  not  a  lasting  supply  has  been  reached. 

With  the  exception  of  some  places  in  the  valley  of  the  Dela- 
ware river,  wells  are  drilled  in  Bucks  county.  After  a  site  has 
been  selected  sometimes  two  or  more  wells  must  be  drilled  be- 
fore a  satisfactory  supply  is  secured.  An  instance  of  this  oc- 
curred recently  on  the  property  of  Allen  Fink,  in  Buckingham 
township,  where  a  well  was  drilled  to  a  depth  of  six  hundred  and 
eighty  feet  without  success.  Another  was  drilled  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five  feet  west  of  the  first  one  to  a  depth  of  two  hun- 
dred feet.  This  was  also  abandoned  and  a  third  well  was  drilled 
about  twenty-five  feet  east  of  the  first  venture  and  a  lasting 
supply  was  secured  at  a  depth  of  seventy-five  feet,  sustaining  a 
pumpage  of  thirty-five  gallons  a  minute. 

From  "Doylestouni  Old  and  Nczu,"  by  General  W.  W.  H. 
Davis,  we  learn  that  the  Borough  of  Doylestown  established  a 
water  works  in  1869.  The  first  supply  was  obtained  from  springs 
ini  the  meadow  above  the  milldam,  from  which  water  was  pumped 
into  a  distributing  basin,  adjoining  the  Doylestown  cemetery. 
Subsequently  three  wells  were  drilled  to  a  depth  of  one  hundred 
and  sixty-five,  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  and  six  hundred  and 
fifty  feet.  Notwithstanding  diligent  inquiry,  the  writer  was  un- 
able to  obtain  the  date  of  the  drilling  of  these  wells. 

We  now  arrive  at  the  discussion  of  pumps  in  Bucks  county 
and  the  writer  asks  to  be  excused  from  giving  a  technical  de- 
scription of  their  construction  because  he  is  not  qualified  to  do  so. 
Our  purpose  is  to  give  a  chronological  review  of  the  several 
methods  of  raising  water  from  the  depths  of  a  well  to  the  surface. 
We  are  tempted  to  cite  the  invention  of  Archimedes  and  the 
transfer  of  the  water  from  the  Nile  but  when  the  title  of  our 
paper  is  recalled  we  must  "stick  to  our  last". 

The  primitive  methods  of  drawing  water  from  a  well  were  by 
means  of  a  rope  and  bucket,  the  windlass,  the  endless  chain  and 
well-sweep.  These  need  no  description  as  the  information  can  be 
obtained  from  any  reliable  encyclopaedia,  and  a  well-sweep  can 
be  seen  among  the  exhibits  in  our  museum.     1  might  sdy,  how- 


WELLS   AND    PUMPS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY  459 

ever,  that  well-sweeps  were  used  in  Bucks  county  and  one  was 
in  practical  use  recently  at  Canada  Hill.  Gunpowder  kegs  were 
used  as  well  buckets.  A  blacksmith  was  employed  to  "iron  them 
off",  that  is  to  say,  strong  iron  hoops  and  a  heavy  bale  were  put 
on  the  keg.  When  the  bucket  was  lowered  and  reached  the 
water,  the  weight  of  the  bale  turned  it  over  and  allowed  it  to  fill 
immediately. 

The  first  pumps  used  in  Bucks  county  were  hand  made. 
Hickory  or  oak  trees  were  selected.  After  the  removal  of  the 
bark,  the  trunks  were  hewn  hexagonal,  which  shape  gave  them  a 
more  uniform  thickness.  They  were  then  placed  on  perfectly 
level  trestles,  and  bored  with  a  pod  auger.  Two  men  were  re- 
quired to  do  this  work.  The  kind  of  tools  used  are  to  be  found 
in  the  museum  of  our  society.  The  trunks  were  bored  immediate- 
ly after  cutting,  while  the  wood  was  green,  and  then  placed  at 
once  in  the  wells. 

Among  the  pump-makers  of  Bucks  county  were  Lewis  Bond 
of  Newtown ;  John  Stradling  of  Oxford  Valley ;  James  Conrad 
of  Mozart;  Tobias  Shuman  of  Erwinna;  Charles  Fry  of  Dan- 
borough,  and  Samuel  Strouse,  who  lived  during  several  periods 
in  Tinicum  and  Nockamixon  townships  alternately.  I  knew  him 
very  well.  In  his  younger  days  he  made  a  large  number  of 
pumps  for  residents  in  the  upper  end  of  Bucks  county.  He  was 
an  excellent  workman  and  supported  his  parents  until  their 
death,  after  which  he  lived  alone.  The  last  pump  made  by  him 
was  during  the  late  eighties  for  Mr.  Helsel  of  Tinicum.  Owing 
to  the  competition  and  low  prices  for  machine-made  pumps,  and 
his  inability  to  direct  any  other  kind  of  work,  Mr.  Strouse,  dur- 
ing his  last  days  on  earth,  was  a  ward  of  his  township  and  his 
body  is  interred  in  the  cemetery  adjoining  the  Nockamixon  church. 
The  average  cost  of  hand-made  pumps,  when  the  material  was 
furnished  by  the  employer,  was  about  twelve  dollars. 

The  "Cucumber"  pump,  while  machine-made,  was  practically 
the  same  as  the  hand-made  pump.  It  was  lighter,  however,  and 
easily  installed.  The  chain-pump  and  the  iron-pump  of  today 
need  no  description.  Another  pump  used  was  the  "boatman's", 
which  was  made  of  tin  or  galvanized  iron  and  produced  at  a 
low  cost.  As  it  had  but  one  bucket  or  valve,  it  could  be  used  only 
in  shallow  wells  and  cisterns.     As   far  as  I  have  been  able  to 


460  WELLS    AND    PUMPS    IN    BUCKS    COUNTY 

learn,  the  first  iron  lift  and  force  pump  was  made  in  1848  by 
Downes  &  Company,  Seneca  Falls,  N.  Y.  The  "pitcher  pump" 
was  largely  used,  and  sales  ran  as  high  as  150,000  annually. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  the  Doylestown  Water  Works  and 
through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Hudson,  the  engineer,  the  plant  was 
visited.  The  "Holly  System"  is  used,  with  Worthington  pumps. 
A  pipe  is  laid  to  each  well  through  which  air  is  pumped  and  the 
water  is  forced  by  compressed  air  to  a  stand  pipe  erected  on  the 
site  of  the  former  reservoir.  The  "Worthington"  pumps  forty 
gallons  at  each  stroke  and  twenty  strokes  a  minute.  Every  stroke 
is  automatically  registered,  thus  enabling  the  engineer  to  deter- 
mine, as  nearly  as  possible,  the  exact  quantity  of  water  raised. 

The  manufacture  of  pumps  has  become  a  great  industry  and  in 
no  part  of  our  country  is  there  a  greater  demand  for  them  than 
in  Bucks  county.  Pumps  are  used  to  provide  an  automatic 
water  supply  system  on  the  farm.  The  pump,  storage  tank  and 
all  other  necessary  apparatus  is  provided  and  can  be  readily  in- 
stalled in  country  homes.  Spraying  machinery  is  also  designed 
to  meet  all  the  demands  of  agriculture  and  horticulture. 

The  old  hand-made  pump  is  still  in  use  and  we  sometimes  find 
a  windlass  and  the  "Old  Oaken  Bucket"  made  famous  in  poetry 
and  song.  Whether  it  is  imagination  or  fascination,  we  like  to 
partake  of  the  greatest  beverage  on  earth  direct  from  its  source, 
instead  of  receiving  it  after  its  passage  through  pipes,  pumps  and 
faucets. 


The  Early  Courthouses  of  Bucks  County. 

BY   MRS.    MARY   T.    HILLBORN,    NEWTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting,   January    20,    1923.) 

SEVERAL  places  claim  the  honor  of  the  first  court-of-justice 
for  Bucks  county,  but  most  authorities  give  it  as  being  held 
at  the  home  of  William  Biles,  two  miles  down  the  Delaware 
river  from  Morrisville,  on  January  4,  1683.  Those  present  on 
the  bench  were  William  Penn,  William  Biles,  William  Yardley 
and  two  or  three  others,  with  Phineas  Pemberton  as  clerk, 
which  office  he  held  until  his  death. ^ 

The  court  was  moved  to  Bristol  in  1705.  On  March  24,  1724, 
an  act  was  passed  by  the  colonial  legislature  authorizing  Jeremiah 
Langhorne,  William  Biles,  Thomas  Kirkbride,  Jr.,  Thomas  W'at- 
son,  M.D.,  and  Abraham  Chapman,  to  obtain  land  for  a  new 
courthouse,  the  price  not  to  exceed  £300.  They  accordingly 
purchased  land  of  John  Walley  in  Newtown,  on  July  17,  1725, 
having  a  frontage  of  forty  perches  on  the  east  side  of  the  com- 
mons, bounded  on  the  south  by  Lower  (now  Penn)  street,  and 
extending  east  twenty  perches,  and  was  known  as  the  "five  acres". 

When  the  courthouse  was  erected  in  Newtown  in  1725,  the 
place  was  but  a  small  village.  The  houses  were  scattered  over 
quite  a  large  space,  with  vacant  lots  beteween  them  cleared  for 
gardens  and  for  planting  grain.  After  the  five  acres  of  land  had 
been  laid  out,  the  squares  were  subdivided  into  smaller  lots  and 
sold. 

In  1733,  the  courthouse  grounds  were  laid  out  in  six  squares, 
marked  on  the  plan  A,  B,  C,  D,  E  and  F,  separated  by  streets. 
The  courthouse,  jail  and  workhouse,  and  the  treasury  building 
were  on  lot  A.  The  jail  was  on  Main  street  and  stood  about 
where  H.  G.  Efifrig's  store  now  stands,  the  jail-yard  was  north  of 
it.  The  courthouse  was  a  two  story  building  with  double  doors 
in  front,  a  fireplace  in  each  end  of  the  building,  stone  chimneys, 
old-fashioned  hip-roof  and  a  square  box  on  top  in  which  hung 
the  bell.  The  judges  were  seated  on  an  elevated  platform,  located 
in  the   recess  of  a  large  bay  window.     The   second   story   was 

1  Phineas  Pemberton  died  March  5,  1702,  one  of  his  daughters  married 
Jeremiah  Langhorne. 


462  THE  EARLY  COURTHOUSES  OF  BUCKS  COUNTY 

finished  in  suitable  rooms  for  juries.  This  building  stood  on  the 
site  of  the  newly  remodeled  house  on  Court  street,  belonging  to 
Mrs.  Horace  G.  Reeder.  The  treasury  building  was  between  the 
jail  and  the  courthouse.  The  high  ground  on  which  the  court- 
house buildings  were  erected,  gave  them  a  very  inspiring  appear- 
ance from  King  street,  now  Centre  avenue. 

In  1745,  the  old  jail  was  found  to  be  too  small,  and  orders  were 
given  for  the  building  of  a  new  and  larger  one.  This  was  located 
directly  west  of  the  courthouse.  The  kitchen  of  the  house,  on 
what  is  generally  called  the  Heilig  property,  now  owned  by  Hor- 
ace G.  Reeder,  was  the  office  and  the  barroom  of  the  jail,  where 
everybody  in  and  out  of  confinement  could  get  rum,  if  they  had 
the  money  to  pay  for  it.  Under  this  room  were  several  cells. 
Paddy  Hunter,  the  jailer  and  bartender,  was  a  man  of  very  lax 
morals,  and  it  was  with  difficulty  that  he  kept  the  prisoners  in 
jail.  After  the  new  jail  was  built,  the  old  one  was  used  as  a 
workhouse  for  the  prisoners.  One  of  the  prisoners  confined 
therein,  was  Elizabeth  Thomas,  charged  with  murder,  she  pleaded 
"not  guilty",  but  was  convicted  of  manslaughter  and  sentenced 
to  be  branded  on  the  hand  with  a  hot  iron,  a  scar  which  she  car- 
ried throughout  the  rest  of  her  life,  with  no  chance  of  living 
down  her  past.  During  the  Revolutionary  war  some  members 
of  the  Society  of  Friends  were  confined  in  the  jail  for  refusing 
to  abandon  their  principles  in  reference  to  war;  one  of  them  was 
Joseph  Smith  of  Buckingham,  the  inventor  of  the  mouldboard  for 
plows ;  he  declined,  from  conscientious  scruples,  to  pay  anything 
towards  the  support  of  the  war ;  he  was  therefore  jailed.  Dur- 
ing his  imprisonment  he  amused  himself  by  whittling  out  the 
model  for  his  plow,  which  he  threw  over  the  jail  wall  and  which 
excited  much  interest  as  an  important  addition  to  farming.- 
There  is  a  record  of  but  one  hanging  in  the  Newtown  jail. 

At  the  death  of  Paddy  Hunter,  Asa  Gary  (later  of  Bird-in- 
Hand  fame),  became  the  jailer.  He  was  the  last  jailer  at  New- 
town and  the  first  at  the  Doylestown  jail.  The  last  visible  trace 
of  the  old  jail  is  the  stone  wall  along  the  west  of  the  property  on 
State  street.  When  the  jail  was  torn  down,  some  of  the  stones 
were  used  in  building  the  Phillips  house,  which  stood  on  East 
Washington  avenue,  and  when  that  was  torn  down  in  1877,  there 

2  For  history  of  the  Smith  plow,  with  etching,  see  Vol.   Ill,  p.   11. 


THE  EARLY  COURTHOUSES  OF  BUCKS  COUNTY  463 

was  found  in  the  wall  a  fragment  of  an  old  milestone  that  had 
stood  at  the  corner  of  the  jail  wall.  The  upper  part  only  was 
left,  and  on  it  was  the  inscription  : 

The  figures  and  letters  doubtless  stood   for  24  miles 

1761  and  64  perches  to  Philadelphia. 

24  M.  In  1772  a  new  fireproof  office  was  built,  located  be- 

64  P.  tween  the  jail  and  courthouse.    This  building,  in  which 

To  P.         the  records  were  kept,  was  twelve  by  sixteen  feet  on 

the  inside,  with  stone  walls  two  feet  thick,  arched  over 
with  bricks ;  there  was  a  chimney  and  fireplace  in  one  end  of  it. 
Prior  to  the  erection  of  this  building  all  of  the  county  records  had 
been  kept  at  the  homes  of  the  respective  incumbents  of  the  row 
offices. 

One  of  the  chief  items  of  interest  in  this  little  building,  was  the 
raid  on  the  treasury  October  22.  1781.  The  raiders  were  known 
as  the  "Doan  Refugees".  They  seemed  to  have  a  grievance  against 
the  government,  but  that  did  not  explain  or  justify  their  outlawry. 
The  raiders  were  led  by  the  Doan  brothers,  who  were  sons  of 
respectable  Quaker  parents  of  Plumstead  township.  This  family 
of  Doans  appears  to  have  been  distinct  from  other  Doan  families 
in  Bucks  county,  as  no  trace  has  been  found  of  any  of  their  de- 
scendants.'^ The  raiders,  all  very  much  under  the  influence  of 
liquor,  left  their  horses  hitched  along  the  Bear  or  Richboro  road, 
just  west  of  the  town.  They  appeared  at  the  home  of  treasurer, 
John  Hart,  who  lived  at  the  "First  Hollow",  but  now  known  to 
the  most  of  us  as  the  Bond  house,  situated  at  the  lower  end  of 
State  street,  now  owned  by  Harry  Mitchell.  Knocking,  they 
gained  admittance,  whereupon  they  began  by  tying  the  hands  of 
Treasurer  Hart,  then  went  upstairs,  ransacked  every  chest  and 
drawer  for  money  and  valuables,  compelled  Mr.  Hart  to  give 
them  the  key  to  the  vault,  which  enabled  them  to  open  it,  broke 
open  the  desk,  and  took  $2,300  in  paper  and  silver  money.  This 
same  desk  is  now  owned  by  \\"atson  T.  Hillborn.  and  has  been 
used  by  five  generations  of  the  Hillborn  family,  coming  to  them 
from  the  Chapman  family.  The  robbers  carried  their  booty  to 
an  old  log  schoolhouse,  which  stood  just  across  the  road  from 
the  Friends  Meeting  House  at  \\>ightstown,  where  they  divided 
it.  each  one  receiving  $140  in  silver,  and  dividing  the  paper  money 

3  See  two  papers  on  the  Doans  by  Dr.  Mercer,  Vol.   I.  pp.  173  and  270. 


464  TPIE  EARLY  COURTHOUSES  OF  BUCKS  COUNTY 

by  count,  without  regard  to  its  value.  The  robbers  were  all 
captured  and  given  trials,  two  of  them  escaped  punishment  by 
making  confessions.  Two  of  the  Doan  brothers  were  hung  in 
Philadelphia,  and  their  father,  Joseph,  walked  behind  the  cart 
which  carried  their  bodies  from  Philadelphia  to  Plumstead. 
They  reached  the  meeting-house  while  meeting  was  in  session. 
The  members  objected  to  their  bodies  being  buried  in  the  grave- 
yard, but  allowed  them  sepulture  in  a  grove  opposite,  which  be- 
longed to  the  meeting. 

The  treasury  building  was  used  during  the  Revolutionary  war 
for  storing  powder,  etc.,  it  was  the  last  building  left  standing, 
and  was  torn  down  in  1873. 

In  1796,  the  public  business  of  the  county  having  increased,  the 
small  fireproof  office  was  found  too  small,  and  therefore  the 
house  now  owned  by  Edward  S.  Hutchinson,  was  erected  by  the 
county  for  public  offices.  The  first  floor  was  divided  by  walls 
twenty  inches  thick  into  four  rooms,  the  two  on  the  south  end 
were  used  as  offices  and  the  two  on  the  north  were  used  as  vaults. 
These  were  provided  with  iron  shutters  and  iron  window  and 
door  frames,  several  of  them  are  still  to  be  seen  in  their  places. 
After  the  erection  of  this  improved  building,  the  old  treasury 
building  was  used  as  a  lockup.^ 

There  is  rather  an  amusing  story  told  of  some  apprentice  boys. 
There  was  a  show  in  the  town,  which  ended  in  a  riot,  the  ring 
leaders  were  arrested  and  put  in  the  lockup,  but  through  the 
influence  of  friends,  all  were  released  except  the  four  apprentice 
boys,  who  dissatisfied  with  their  accommodations,  climbed  up  the 
chimney,  and  as  black  as  crows,  they  cawed  defiance  to  Mosey 
Lancaster,  the  chief  burgess,  who  lived  in  an  adjoining  house. 
Getting  out  his  gun.  Mosey  ordered  the  boys  to  their  quarters, 
but  they  continued  to  keep  up  their  noise  until  the  wee  small 
hours,  when  they  went  down  the  chimney  to  their  quarters  in  the 
jail.  I  think  some  of  us  remember  Mosey  Lancaster,  who  was 
the  first  chief  burgess  of  Newtown.  He  lived  to  the  age  of  about 
ninety  years.  What  I  remember  best  about  him  was  the  very 
fancy  waistcoat  he  used  to  wear,  which  I  suppose  appealed  to 
me  as  a  child. 

4  For  detailed  description  of  tlie  public  buildings  at  Newton,  with  etchings, 
see  paper  by  Edward  S.  Hutchinson,  Vol.  I,  p.   384  et  seq. 


The  Lowther  Family  of  Buckingham. 

BY  MRS.  ADA  LOWTHER  WILKINSON,  NEW  YORK  CITY. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  20,  1923.) 

WILLIAM  LOWTHER,  with  Martha,  his  wife,  and  their 
six  children,  came  to  America  in  the  year  1729,  at  a  time 
when  there  was  a  great  rush  of  emigration  from  the 
British  Isles.  They  were  known  as  English  Quakers,  settling  first 
in  Abington,  Philadelphia  county,  and  were  identified  with  the 
Abington  Monthly  Meeting. 

They,  with  Edward  Farmer  and  Rachel,  his  wife,  had  a  grant 
of  land  in  Philadelphia  county  from  the  Proprietaries  of  the 
Commonwealth,  consisting  of  one  thousand  acres.  It  was  dis- 
covered that  this  grant  lay  within  the  German  Land  Companies 
possessions,  so  the  proprietors  ordered  a  resurvey  and  layed  out 
to  Edward  Farmer  and  William  Lowther  one  thousand  acres, 
part  of  which  lay  in  Oley  township,  Philadelphia  county,  and  two 
tracts  in  Bucks  county. 

In  1731  that  part  of  the  land  grant  which  lay  in  Oley  township, 
consisting  of  two  hundred  acres,  was  sold  to  John  Hufifnagle,  of 
Oley,  for  the  sum  of  illO.  Persumably  it  was  about  this  time 
that  William  Lowther  moved  with  his  family  to  "The  Wilder- 
ness" as  this  section  was  then  called. 

The  old  Lowther  Plantation  in  Buckingham,  of  later  years 
known  as  the  Lippincott  farm,  bordering  on  the  Lumberville  and 
Durham  roads,  is  about  four  miles  northeast  of  Doylestown  and 
one  mile  southwest  of  the  village  of  Mechanicsville.  This  farm 
has  only  within  the  last  few  years  passed  entirely  out  of  the 
family,  it  having  come  down  through  the  descendents  of  James 
and  Ruth  Lowther  Bradshaw  for  more  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years. 

In  the  Buckingham  Monthly  Meeting  records,  appears  the 
following:  "November  6,  1734.  At  this  meeting  William  Low- 
ther produced  a  certificate  from  the  Abington  Monthly  Meeting, 
which  came  from  Ireland,  for  his  wife  and  family  (his  son, 
Robert,  excepted  being  not  in  Unity)  which  was  read  and  ac- 
cepted."    In  the  Buckingham  Monthly  Meeting  records  are  also 


466  THE  LOWTHER  FAMILY  OF  BUCKINGHAM 

registered  the  marriages  of  three  of  the  daughters,  Sarah,  Martha 
and  Mary. 

1.  Sarah,  married  Thomas  Ely,  son  of  Hugh  and  Mary  Ely, 
November  22,  1734.  Hugh  Ely,  the  father  of  Thomas,  set  apart 
the  present  Paxson  farm  at  Holicong  to  the  new  couple  and  they 
lived  there  until  1773  when  they  moved  to  Harford  county,  Md. 
Their  son  Hugh  married  Sarah  Balderson,  daughter  of  John 
Balderson  of  Solebury,  at  the  Buckingham  Monthly  Meeting, 
Jan.  5,  1774.  Sarah  Ely  was  acting  clerk  of  the  Monthly  Meet- 
ing at  Deer  Creek,  Md.,  in  1790. 

2.  Robert,  was  married  to  Aquilla  Reese,  February  20,  1736, 
to  whom  I  will  refer  later. 

3.  Joel,  married  Phoebe  Ellis,  July  5,  1738,  in  the  First  Pres- 
byterian Church.  He  was  disowned  by  the  Buckingham  Month- 
ly Meeting  in  1740,  but  abstracts  from  the  meeting  do  not  dis- 
close the  cause,  but  it  was  doubless  because  he  "married  out  of 
meeting."  In  Joel's  family  there  were  variations  in  the  spelling 
of  the  family  name,  such  as  Lother,  Louder  and  Lowder,  due  first 
to  the  Welsh  influence,  who  disregarded  the  w,  and  second  to 
the  German  pronunciation,  which  made  it  Lowder,  using  d  in- 
stead of  th. 

Their  son  John  married  Martha,  daughter  of  Jeremiah  Vastine, 
Jr.,  about  1760,  and  lived  at  Hilltown,  Bucks  county.  Their  son 
Abraham,  born  Ajpril  10,  1771,  married  Catharine  Tettemer  in 
1801.  He  was  killed  by  falling  from  a  runaway  horse  on  April 
22,  1814.  Their  children  were,  Henry,  born  January  9,  1802,  who 
married  at  Groton,  N.  Y.  John,  born  February  21,  1805,  died  at 
Wilkes-Barre,  Pa.,  in  1869.  Moses,  born  December  11,  1812. 
Catharine  Tettemer  Lowder  married  2nd.  Abraham  Freyling. 

4.  Ruth  was  married  to  James  Bradshaw,  son  of  John  Brad- 
shaw  about  the  year  1740.  In  1741  William  Lowther  sold  to 
James  Bradshaw,  his  son-in-law,  seventy  acres  of  the  Lowther 
homestead  farm,  and  at  the  death  of  William  Lowther  in  1750, 
his  executor,  Benjamin  Fell,  sold  the  remaining  portion  of  the 
plantation  consisting  of  eighty  acres  to  James  Bradshaw.  Ruth 
and  James  had  twelve  children,  John,  William,  David,  Amos, 
Joel,  George,  Rachel,  Ruth,  Robert,  Mary,  James  and  Sarah. 

James  lived  until  the  eve  of  the  Revolution.  His  will  was  made 
October  22,  1774.     He  devised  the  farm   ("where  I  now  live") 


THE  LOWTHER  FAMILY  OF  BUCKINGHAM  467 

to  his  eldest  son  John.  His  widow,  Ruth,  survived  him  and  she 
received  "seven  hundred  pounds  and  a  room  in  the  house."  Ruth 
was  not  a  Quaker  until  after  her  children  were  grown  and  with 
some  of  them  she  accepted  their  faith.    She  died  in  1803. 

5.  Martha,  who  married  Joseph  Carver  November  7,  1774,  at 
Buckingham  Meeting  House.  Joseph  was  the  son  of  William  and 
Elizabeth  Carver.  Elizabeth  was  the  daughter  of  Henry  Walms- 
ley  of  Buckingham,  and  grandson  of  John  and  Mary  Carver, 
who  came  from  England  in  1682  with  William  Penn.  They  had 
a  son,  Joel,  whose  children  were  Joel,  Jr.,  Rachel  and  Robert. 

6.  Mary,  who  married  Samuel  Simpson  of  Plumstead  on  Au- 
gust 2,  1745,  at  Buckingham  Meeting  House.  Samuel  was  clerk 
of  the  Plumstead  Meeting  for  twenty  years,  but  took  certificates 
for  himself  and  his  family  to  the  Abington  Meeting  in  1765.  He 
died  in  1790.  Their  children  were  Joel,  Martha,  Benjamin. 
Samuel,  William  and  Amos. 

William  Lowther  died  in  the  fall  of  1750,  Martha,  his  wife 
having  died  about  two  years  before.  His  will  was  made  Sept. 
2,  1750,  and  was  witnessed  by  John  Thomas,  Abraham  Tucker 
and  John  Watson,  Jr.,  and  read  as  follows : 

"Be  it  remembered  that  I,  William  Lowther  of  the  Township  of 
Buckingham  and  the  County  of  Bucks,  Weaver,  being  weak  of  body 
but  of  sound  mind  and  memory  (blessed  be  God  there  fore)  for  pre- 
venting disputes  that  might  otherwise  hereafter  arise  in  my  family, 
touching  the  estate  with  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  bless  me,  have 
thought  fit  to  devise  and  dispose  of  the  same  in  the  following  man- 
ner:    that  is  to  say: 

I  give  and  devise  all  my  lands,  hereditament,  and  appurtanences 
whatsoever  to  the  same  belonging,  situated  in  Buckingham  Township 
or  elsewhere  to  be  sold  by  my  executors  herein  after  named,  as  soon 
as  conveniently  may  be  after  my  decease  and  for  the  best  price  that 
can  or  may  be  had  for  the  same,  and  the  money  arising  from  such 
sale,  I  will  to  be  disposed  of  as  here  after  mentioned.  That  is  to  say: 
sixty  pounds  thereof  I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  son-in-law  James  Brad- 
shaw  upon  the  condition  that  he  first  give  security  to  the  keeper  of  the 
Township  aforesaid,  for  the  maintenance  of  my  granddaughter,  Han- 
nah Lowther,  daughter  of  my  son  Robert,  during  the  time  and  term 
of  her  natural  life.  But  if  my  said  son-in-law  refuses  or  neglects  to 
give  such  security  by  the  space  of  three  months  after  my  decease,  then 
I  give  the  same  sum  of  sixty  pounds  to  such  other  of  my  children  as 
will  give  security  as  aforesaid.  And  as  touching  the  residue  of  the 
money  arising  from  the  sale  aforesaid.  I  give  and  bequeath  the  same  to 


468  THE  LOWTHER  FAMILY  OF  BUCKINGHAM 

be  equally  divided  between  my  children,  my  son,  Joel  excepted,  to  whom 
I  give  a  double  share  of  the  same. 

Also  all  the  rest  and  residue  of  my  estate  after  full  payment  of  in- 
terest, debts  and  funeral  expenses,  I  bequeath  to  be  equally  divided  be- 
tween my  children,  share  and  share  alike,  my  son  Joel  above  named 
only  excepted,  to  which  I  give  no  part  of  the  same,  and  lastly  I  con- 
stitute and  appoint  my  friend,  Benjamin  Fell,  executor  of  this  my 
Testament  and  Last  Will,  hereby  revoking  all  former  wills  and  testa- 
ments by  me  at  any  time  made,  and  declare  this  written  sheet  of  paper 
to  be  and  contain  my  last  will  and  testament,  and  none  other  nor  other- 
wise. Dated  this  the  second  day  of  the  seventh  month  (September)  in 
the  year  1750."     (Will  Book  2,  Doylestown,  Pa.) 

Robert  Lowther,  son  of  William  and  Martha,  of  Bucks  county, 
married  Aquilla  Reese  of  Plumstead  township,  on  February  20, 
1736,  in  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Philadelphia,  (see 
records  of  that  church),  presumably  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Whitefield 
of  Philadelphia,  who  journeyed  out  to  Abington  twice  each  month 
to  preach  to  the  Presbyterians  in  that  section.  In  this  same  year 
Aquilla  Lowther  was  disowned  by  the  Quakers  of  Buckingham, 
and  though  no  reason  for  the  disownment  was  recorded,  it  is  sup- 
posed as  was  often  the  case,  to  have  been  because  of  her  marriage 
to  one  who  was  not  "of  the  unity."  About  the  year  1740  Robert 
and  Aquilla  moved  to  Moorfield,  Hardy  county,  on  the  Potomac 
river,  then  a  part  of  Augusta  county,  Va.  At  that  time  all  the 
land  which  lay  west  of  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains,  in  fact  all  the 
present  state  of  West  Virginia  and  a  portion  of  Western  Penn- 
sylvania including  Pittsburgh  and  the  lands  on  the  Ohio  river 
formed  Augusta  county.  In  this  district  settled  a  people  "whose 
characteristics  have  ever  been  truth,  honesty,  simplicity  and 
courage.     (Wither's  Border  Warfare.) 

The  following  is  a  copy  from  a  diary  by  John  Bradshaw,  son 
of  Robert  Lowther's  sister,  Ruth  Bradshaw,  and  from  whom 
Mrs.  Clayton  D.  Fretz  of  Sellersville  is  descended : 

"Robert  Lowther  lived  in  Harrison  County  in  Virginia  about  six- 
teen miles  south  of  Clarksburg.  He  died  about  the  year  1780  and  left 
six  children.  His  oldest  child  called  Mary  married  Alexander  Morri- 
son and  lives  eight  miles  from  Clarksburg,  (and  has  five  children  all 
living  in  the  same  neighborhood.  The  first  named  Archibald,  the  sec- 
ond Margaret  Lowther,  the  third  Mary  Kester,  the  fourth  Alexander, 
fifth  Sarah  Reese).  Robert's  second  child  Sarah  Dark,  lived  in  Jeffer- 
son County,  near  Shepherdstown  on  the  Potomac,  the  third  William 
married  Sidney  Hughes,  the  fourth  Martha  Childers,  the  fifth  Rebecca 


THE  LOWTHER  FAMILY  OF  BUCKINGHAM  469 

Carder,  the  sixth  Joel  lives  in  Wood  County  on  the  Kanaway,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Hughes  River." 

This  information  is  given  by  Alexander  Morrison,  grandson  to 
Robert  Lowther,  on  the  18th  day  of  Jan.  1807.  This  list  of 
Robert's  children  does  not  include  Jonathan,  who  was  shot  down 
by  the  Indians  in  an  eflfort  to  protect  the  fort,  in  1778,  nor  does 
it  mention  Hannah  who  was  a  beneficiary  in  her  grandfather's 
will  in  1750. 

Robert  Lowther  left  Moorfield  in  1770  and  moved  with  his 
children  to  Harrison  county.  It  was  there  that  he  reentered  upon 
the  pioneer  struggles  necessary  to  clear  the  heavy  forests  and 
transfer  them  into  farm  lands.  These  rugged  men  conquered  the 
wild  beasts,  fought  back  the  tribes  of  wild  Indians,  subdued  the 
forests,  built  homes  and  planted  the  seeds  of  civilization  that 
was  to  be  the  heritage  of  future  generations,  and  to  grow  into 
wealth,  intelligence  and  moral  qualities  through  the  coming  ages. 
In  this  new  settlement  there  were  several  families  whose  names 
figured  in  the  settlement  of  Bucks  county  in  the  earlier  years, 
and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  small  colony  of  the  younger 
people  left  this  section  together,  to  seek  out  homes  for  them- 
selves and  their  families  in  the  southern  tier  of  counties  first, 
and  later,  over  the  mountains  into  Augusta  county.  Joel  Low- 
ther, son  of  Robert  and  Aquilla  Lowther,  was  born  in  Augusta 
county  in  1746,  and  lived  on  the  Kanaway  river  in  Western  Vir- 
ginia. He  served  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution  and  was  severely 
wounded,  in  the  later  years  of  his  life  he  moved  to  Athens, 
Ohio,  and  lived  with  his  children  until  his  death  in  1822.  Colonel 
William  Lowther,  son  of  Robert  and  Aquilla,  was  born  December 
22,  1742,  in  Augusta  county,  Va.  He  married  Sudna,  daughter 
of  Thomas  Hughes  in  1764, 

"Soon  after  William  Lowther  moved  to  Harrison  County,  in  1772, 
he  became  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  figures  in  the  County.  During 
the  war  of  1774  and  subsequently  he  was  most  active  and  efificient  de- 
fender of  that  vicinity  against  the  savages.  He  was  the  first  justice  of 
the  peace  in  the  district  of  West  Augusta,  the  first  sheriff  of  Harrison 
and  Wood  County,  and  was  once  a  delegate  to  the  General  Assembly 
of  the  State.  His  military  merit  carried  him  through  the  subordinate 
grades  to  the  rank  of  colonel,  which  position  he  retained  until  Wayne's 
treaty  with  the  Indians  at  Greenville."     (Wither  Border  Warfare.) 

Colonel  Lowther  died  October  28,  1814,  and  is  buried  in  the 


470  THE  LOWTHER  FAMILY  OF  BUCKINGHAM 

family  burying  ground  on  the  old  Lowther  farm  on  the  west 
fork  of  the  Monongahela  river,  four  miles  from  Clarksburg, 
West  Virginia, 

Thomas  Hughes,  mentioned  as  the  father-in-law  of  Colonel 
William  Lowther,  and  afterward  killed  by  the  Indians,  was  a  de- 
scendent  of  John  Hughes  one  of  the  earliest  settlers  in  Bucks 
county.  Thomas  was  one  of  the  pioneers  of  Hardy  county,  Va. 
and  in  1770  he  with  his  three  sons,  Jesse,  Thomas,  Jr.,  and  Elias, 
moved  across  the  mountains  into  Western  Virginia.  These  three 
men  with  William  Lowther  built  the  first  fort  west  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  Mountains  where  the  town  of  Meadow  Brook  now  stands. 
Jesse  Hughes  and  his  brothers  were  great  Indian  fighters.  Their 
names  were  a  terror  to  the  savages  and  household  words  of  com- 
fort to  the  scattered  settlers  in  that  section. 

The  Reese  family  of  which  Aquilla  Reese  of  Plumstead  was 
a  member  were  very  numerous.  Some  were  Quakers,  the  family 
having  first  come  to  America  with  William  Penn,  from  whom 
they  had  grants  of  land  in  Philadelphia  and  Bucks  counties. 
These  and  many  other  families  who  followed  the  trail  of  ad- 
vancing civilization  through  the  southern  tier  of  counties,  over 
the  mountain-pass  and  on  to  Western  Virginia,  Ohio  and  North 
Carolina,  had  their  American  origin  in  Bucks  county,  Pennsyvania. 


Notes  on  Adobe  Bricks. 

BY   HORACE  M.    MANN^  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  20,  1923.) 

ADOBE  or  adobe  bricks  are  large  roughly-formed  bricks 
made  of  a  gray  clay  or  soil,  found  through  parts  of  Colo- 
rado, New  Mexico,  Arizona,  border  of  Texas  and  in  old 
Mexico,  which  becomes  very  hard  after  being  wet  and  baked  in 
the  sun,  but  never  baked  in  a  kiln,  now  moulded  in  forms,  though 
before  the  advent  of  the  white  man  formed  in  rough  balls,  and 
much  used  by  the  Indians  and  other  natives  of  the  southwestern 
United  States  and  Mexico  in  house  construction.  Lewis  H. 
Morgan,  in  his  "Ruins  of  a  Stone  Pueblo",  (Peabody  Museum 
Report,  Vol.  XII,  p.  541),  says: 

"Adobe  is  a  kind  of  pulverized  clay  with  a  bond  of  considerable 
strength  by  mechanical  cohesion.  In  southern  Colorado,  in  Arizona, 
and  New  Mexico  there  are  immense  tracts  covered  with  what  is  called 
adobe  soil.  It  varies  somewhat  in  the  degree  of  its  excellence.  The 
kind  of  which  they  make  their  pottery  has  the  largest  per  cent  of 
alumina  and  its  presence  is  indicated  by  the  salt  weed  which  grows  in 
this  particular  soil.  This  kind  also  makes  the  best  adobe  mortar.  The 
Indians  use  it  freely  in  laying  their  walls,  as  freely  as  our  masons  use 
lime  mortar;  and  although  it  never  acquires  the  hardness  of  cement, 
it  disintegrates  slowly." 

In  Bulletin  30,  Part  1,  1907,  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology, 
Handbook  of  American  Indians,  adobe  is  defined  and  described 
thus : 

"Abode  (a  word  traceable  to  an  Egyptian  hieroglyph  signifying 
'brick,'  thence  to  Arabic  'at-tob,'  whence  the  Spanish  'adobar,'  meaning 
'to  daub,'  'to  plaster;'  adopted  in  the  United  States  from  Mexico.) 
Large  sun-dried  bricks,  much  used  by  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  New  Mex- 
ico in  building  houses  and  garden  walls.  The  process  of  molding 
adobes  in  a  wooden  frame  was  not  employed  by  the  aborigines  of  the 
United  States  before  the  advent  of  the  Spaniards  in  the  16th  century." 

In  1540  the  Pueblo  method  of  preparing  the  material  and  of 
erecting  masonry,  when  stone  was  not  available,  is  thus  described 
by  Castaneda  about  1560  (14th  report,  Bureau  American  Eth- 
nology, p.  520,  1896)  : 

"They  gather  a  great  pile  of  twigs  of  thyme  (sagebrush)  and  sedge 
grass  and  set  it  afire,  and  when  it  is  half  coals  and  ashes  they  throw  a 


472  NOTES   ON    ADOBE    BRICKS 

quantity  of  dirt  and  water  on  it  and  mix  it  all  together.  They  make 
round  balls  of  this,  which  they  use  instead  of  stones  after  they  are 
dry,  fixing  them  with  the  same  mixture,  which  comes  to  be  like  a 
stiff  clay."    The  Bureau  Report  continues: 

After  the  introduction  of  wheat  by  the  Spaniards  the  straw  crushed 
by  the  hoofs  of  horses,  in  stamping  out  the  grain  on  the  threshing 
floor,  was  substituted  by  the  Indians  for  the  charred  brush.  The 
character  of  much  of  the  soil  of  the  arid  region  is  such  that  no  foreign 
admixture,  excepting  the  straw,  is  required.  A  requisite  of  adobe-mak- 
ing is  a  good  supply  of  water;  consequently  the  industry  is  conducted 
generally  on  the  banks  of  streams,  near  which  pueblos  are  usually  built. 
When  molded,  the  adobes  are  set  on  edge  to  dry,  slanted  slightly  to 
shed  rain.  Adobes  vary  in  size,  but  are  generally  about  eighteen  inches 
long,  eight  to  ten  inches  wide  and  four  to  six  inches  thick.  In  setting 
them  in  walls,  mortar  of  the  same  material  is  used.  For  the  sake  of  ap- 
pearance, as  well  as  to  aid  in  protecting  it  against  weathering,  adobe 
masonry  is  usually  plastered,  the  Indian  women  using  their  hands  as 
trowels,  when  it  presents  a  pleasing  appearance,  varying  in  color  from 
gray  to  a  rich  reddish  brown,  according  to  the  color  of  the  earth  of 
which  the  plaster  is  made.  The  interior  walls,  and  sometimes  also  the 
borders  of  the  windows  and  doors,  are  sometimes  whitewashed  with 
gypsum.  Another  kind  of  earth-masonry  in  the  arid  region  is  that 
known  as  'pise.'  This  was  made  by  erecting  a  double  framework  of 
poles,  wattled  with  reeds  or  grass,  forming  two  parallel  surfaces  as  far 
apart  as  the  desired  thickness  of  the  wall,  and  into  the  enclosed  space 
adobe  grout  was  rammed. 

In  the  description  of  the  celebrated  Casa  Grande,  Arizona, 
ruin  (Mindeleff,  13th  Report  Bureau  American  Ethnology,  pp. 
238,  309,  1891-2)  exception  is  taken  to  referring  to  the  ruin  as  an 
adobe  structure  as  follows : 

"Adobe  construction,  if  the  word  is  limited  to  its  proper  meaning, 
consists  of  the  use  of  molded  brick,  dried  in  the  sun  but  not  fire-baked. 
Adobe,  as  thus  defined,  is  very  largely  used  throughout  the  southwest. 
more  than  nine  out  of  ten  houses  erected  by  the  Mexican  population  and 
many  of  those  erected  by  the  Pueblo  Indians  being  so  constructed;  but 
it  is  never  found  in  the  older  ruins,  although  seen  to  a  limited  extent  in 
ruins  knowns  to  belong  to  a  period  subsequent  to  the  Spanish  conquest. 
Its  discovery,  therefore,  in  the  Casa  Grande  would  be  important;  but 
no  trace  of  it  can  be  found.  The  walls  are  composed  of  huge  blocks  of 
earth,  three  or  five  feet  long,  two  feet  high,  and  three  to  four  feet  thick. 
These  blocks  are  not  molded  and  then  placed  in  position  but  were  manu- 
factured in  place.  The  method  adopted  was  probably  the  erection  of  a 
frame  work  of  canes  or  light  poles,  woven  with  reeds  or  grass,  forming 
two  parallel  surfaces  or  planes,  some  three  or  four  feet  apart  and  above 
five  feet  long.  Into  this  open  box  or  trough  was  rammed  clayey  earth 
obtained  from  the  immediate  vicinity  and  mixed  with  water  to  a  heavy 


NOTES    ON    ADOBE    BRICKS  47,3 

paste.  When  the  mass  was  sufficiently  dry,  the  framework  was  moved 
along  the  wall  and  the  operation  repeated.  This  is  the  typical  'pise' 
or  rammed-earth  construction,  and  in  the  hands  of  skilled  workmen  it 
suffices  for  the  construction  of  quite  elaborate  buildings." 

An  excellent!  description  of  this  pise  construction  may  be  found 
in  detail  in  The  Cyclopaedia  of  Arts,  Sciences  and  Literature  by 
Abraham  Reese,  Philadelphia,  Vol.  XXVIII,  under  the  subject 
of  "Pise."  At  the  time  (c.  1800)  this  article  was  prepared,  a 
serious  attempt  was  being  made  to  introduce  that  form  of  con- 
struction into  England  from  parts  of  France  where  it  had  long 
been  practiced  with  great  success.  The  method  pursued  was 
probably  the  same  as  in  the  Casa  Grande,  though  no  doubt  more 
attention  was  given  to  using  better  forms  or  moulds,  between 
which  the  loamy  earth  was  packed  and  rammed.  According  to 
Reese's  account,  as  fast  as  a  section  of  the  mould  was  filled  and  the 
rammed  earth  thoroughly  dry  the  mould  was  moved  up  or  along 
and  the  ramming  in  of  earth  proceeded  as  before.  Walls  of  this 
nature  however  must  be  built  on  a  foundation  of  durable  masonry 
raised  to  a  height  of  at  least  two  feet  which  is  necessary  to  secure 
the  walls  from  the  moisture  of  the  ground ;  they  must  have  a  good 
roof,  usually  in  England  of  thatch,  with  an  overhanging  eve  and 
must  also  have  the  outside  walls  well  plastered  with  lime  and 
sand  mortar  to  prevent  moisture  or  storms  from  disintegrating 
the  earth  walls.  This  type  of  house  was  strong,  healthy,  very 
cheap,  and  quickly  raised  and,  by  renewing  the  plastering  on  the 
outside  walls  every  ten  to  fifteen  years,  very  durable,  houses  ex- 
isting in  France  are  known  to  be  at  least  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
years  old.  Adobe  construction  is  useless  where  there  is  much 
moisture  or  where  there  is  any  severe  frost  so  that  this  type  of 
building  was  only  practical  in  the  warm  dry  climate  of  south- 
western United  States  and  northern  Mexico  and  was  never  found 
elsewhere  in  this  country  with  the  possible  exception  of  some  at- 
tempt to  make  sun  baked  bricks  along  the  eastern  shore  of  Mary- 
land for  interior  partition  walls,  the  facts  of  which  we  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  learn. 

As  these  adobe  bricks  figured  so  much  in  the  economic  life  of 
the  natives  of  our  southwestern  states,  and  as  some  of  the  later 
pueblos  were  built  of  it,  we  were  anxious  to  secure  a  few  speci- 
mens together  with   such  tools   as   were   used   in   their  making. 


474  NOTES    ox    ADOBE    BRICKS 

Through  the  courtesy  of  the  El  Paso  Chamber  of  Commerce  we 
secured  a  half  dozen  of  these  bricks  and  a  double  wooden  mould 
in  which  they  were  shaped.  These  bricks  are  made  of  the  native 
adobe  clay  plentifully  mixed  with  pebbles  and  show  the  grass 
or  straw  used  to  bind  them  together  until  dry.  They  are  about 
eighteen  inches  long  by  twelve  inches  wide  and  four  inches  thick. 
They  were  taken  from  the  ruins  of  an  old  church  which  is  said 
to  be  the  first  church  built  at  that  place  (El  Paso)  on  the  Amer- 
ican side  of  the  river,  possibly  two  hundred  years  ago.  On 
several  of  the  bricks  the  plaster  or  whitewash  still  clings  with 
which  the  interior  of  the  church  was  finished.  At  the  time  the 
bricks  were  secured  the  lower  part  of  the  walls,  where  the  weather 
had  not  been  able  to  get  to  the  adobe,  were  still  in  good  condition, 
showing  that  the  material  would  last  indefinitely  if  protected  from 
the  rain.  The  mould  or  form  that  came  with  them  is,  of  course, 
of  a  much  later  date,  probably  having  been  made  and  used  within 
the  last  year  or  so.  It  is  a  double  mould  for  making  two  bricks 
at  once.  It  is  a  square  frame  made  of  four  pieces  of  half  inch 
wood,  open  at  both  sides,  strengthened  with  wire  at  each  end  and 
is  some  twenty-nine  and  one-half  inches  long  by  twenty  inches 
wide  and  four  inches  deep  with  a  wooden  cross  piece  in  the  mid- 
dle dividing  it  into  two  moulds  each  eighteen  by  twelve  by  four 
inches. 

From  letters  of  W.  E.  Stockwell  of  the  El  Paso  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  and  from  Charles  A.  Wright  of  Albuquerque,  New 
Mexico,  I  find  that  the  methods  of  making  adobe  bricks  have 
changed  very  little  since  the  Indians  first  learned  from  the  Span- 
iard how  to  mould  a  brick  instead  of  rolling  the  clay  into  balls  or 
tamping  large  blocks  between  wooden  or  wicker  frames. 

An  Indian  or  Mexican  native  starting  to  make  these  bricks 
selects  a  place  nearest  his  proposed  building  where  the  adobe 
stratum  is  the  deepest  and  longest  and  starts  digging  up  the  clay 
soil  usually  where  the  material  from  the  excavation  can  be  used 
in  making  the  bricks.  In  this  hole  the  clay  is  mixed  with  water 
until  the  clay  has  all  been  pulverized,  then  they  mix  in  dry  grass, 
old  hay,  manure,  straw  or  other  fibrous  material  until  the  batch 
is  of  a  proper  consistency  to  mould.  The  only  tools  used  are  a 
shovel  for  digging  out  the  adobe  clay,  a  hoe  for  mixing  it  and 
the  wooden  mould  for  forming  the  brick.    Even  the  hoe  is  not  a 


NOTES  ^N    ADOBE    BRICKS  475 

necessity  as  many  natives  prefer  to  do  the  mixing  with  their  bare 
feet.    Mr.  Wright  says  : 

"I  have  seen  the  natives,  where  they  could  not  afford  a  hoe  to  mix 
the  dirt  and  water  together,  get  in  the  mud  with  their  pants  and 
dresses  pulled  up  above  their  knees  and  tramp  it  half  a  day,  then  mix 
in  the  grass  or  straw  and  get  in  again  with  their  feet  and  mix  for  an- 
other half  day." 

Mr.  Wright  continues,  in  substance,  as  follows : 

This  grass  or  straw  does  not  rot  out  leaving  holes  in  the  bricks, 
as  adobes  two  hundred  years  old  have  been  found  with  grass  or 
straw  still  as  good  as  that  in  bricks  only  half  that  old.  When 
correctly  mixed  the  mud  is  shoveled  into  the  wooden  moulds 
which  are  laid  flat  on  the  ground  which  has  been  cleared  of  brush 
and  trash,  leveled  and  made  smooth  for  the  purpose.  The  moulds 
are  wet  at  the  time  the  mud  is  placed  in  them  so  that  they  can  be 
immediately  removed  or  lifted,  leaving  the  brick  on  the  ground  to 
dry  in  the  sun.  One  man  can  make  one  hundred  or  two  hundred 
blocks  in  a  day.  They  are  left  lying  flat  for  several  days  to  be  sun- 
dried,  then  they  are  stood  on  end  to  give  them  the  wind  and  sun 
on  both  sides,  and  inside  of  two  weeks  are  ready  to  set  up  in  the 
house.  Adobe  bricks  are  usually  18x12x4  inches  and  weight  any- 
where from  15  to  20  to  25  pounds  apiece,  though  the  size  varies, 
some  being  16x8x4,  some  12x12x4,  all  depending  on  the  ideas  of 
the  maker. 

Adobe  bricks  are  generally  laid  in  the  wall  so  that  the  long  side 
of  the  brick  is  the  thickness  of  the  wall.  For  mortar  they  use 
the  plain  adobe  soil  and  water,  leaving  out  the  grass,  hay  or 
straw,  and  for  plastering,  inside  and  outside  the  house,  they  use 
the  same  material  worked  up  until  softer.  In  plastering  they  use 
a  trowel,  if  they  have  one,  if  not  they  use  their  bare  hands. 

Some  natives  who  are  better  makers  of  adobe  bricks  than 
others  producing  a  harder  and  better  brick,  sometimes  do  not  use 
any  straw  or  grass.  But  the  usual  practice  is  to  mix  some  straw 
or  grass  with  the  mud,  the  quantities  varying  with  the  pleasure  of 
the  workman.  They  do  not  have  any  particular  time  of  the  year 
to  make  them  though  if  in  a  region  where  there  might  be  light 
frosts  (which  would  not  hurt  a  cured  brick  but  would  crack  a 
green  one),  they  do  not  make  them  during  the  cooler  part  of 
the  year. 


476  NOTES    ON    ADOBE    BRICKS 

Another  type  of  these  bricks  is  made  by  the  native  people  who 
own  land  close  to  the  river,  where  plenty  of  coarse  grass  grows  in 
good  adobe  soil.  These  are  blocks  cut  directly  from  the  soil,  the 
grass  roots  answering  as  the  material  that  holds  the  adobe  to- 
gether. These  bricks  are  not  called  adobe  but  are  called  "ter- 
reno"  (pronounced  tyronio). 

Adobe  bricks  stand  up  well  against  wind  and  sand  but  they 
will  not  last  long  where  much  rain  occurs  unless  the  adobe  is  set 
on  a  concrete  or  stone  foundation,  plastered  with  lime  or  cement 
on  the  outside  and  covered  -with  a  good  roof  to  shed  the  water; 
if  they  are  subjected  to  wet  they  crumble  and  in  time  crack  and 
come  apart. 

My  correspondents  advise  me  that  adobe  bricks  are  still  being 
used  to  a  large  extent  in  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  on  the  border 
of  Texas.  That  no  material  gives  the  service  that  adobe  does  pro- 
vided it  be  made  of  the  right  soil  or  clay,  put  together  with  the 
right  proportion  of  grass  or  straw,  given  the  right  time  to  cure, 
kept  from  wetting  by  rains,  laid  on  a  stone  or  concrete  founda- 
tion, with  a  proper  thickness  to  the  walls  and  with  a  roof  to  shed 
water.  Houses  constructed  of  adobes  are  very  comfortable,  be- 
ing warm  in  winter  and  cool  in  summer.  For  this  reason,  and 
owing  to  the  availability  and  cheapness  of  the  material,  adobe 
forms  an  important  building  material  in  the  southwest  and  many 
large  attractive  houses  are  built  with  it. 

NOTES  ON  ADOBE  BRICKS,  BY  DR.   HENRY  C.   MERCER. 

So  little  is  generally  known  concerning  the  history  and  distri- 
bution of  houses  built  of  sun-baked  bricks,  that  the  following 
notes  to  Mr.  Mann's  valuable  paper,  seem  important: 

Dr.  George  Hayman  recently  informed  me  that  houses  or 
chimneys  had  been  built  of  sun-baked  bricks  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  Maryland  about  1850  and  earlier.  This  statement  was 
confirmed  by  Mr.  Morris  Keene  BarroU,  2nd.,  who  recently  wrote 
that  he  had  found  negroes  near  Chestertown,  Maryland,  who  had 
made  these  bricks  in  their  younger  days.  As  the  eastern  shore 
of  Maryland  is  considerably  above  the  frost  limit,  these  state- 
ments have  seemed  very  surprising.  As  yet  none  of  the  bricks 
in  question  have  come  to  the  museum  of  our  society. 

Still   more    surprising   was    information   received    this    month 


NOTES   ON   ADOBE    BRICKS  477 

(January,  1923),  from  Miss  Emily  C.  Bradbury  of  Germantown, 
Pa.,  who  had  been  employed  in  government  work  in  Russia  in 
1918,  that  she  had  then  seen  numerous  houses,  in  the  region 
about  one  hundred  miles  south  of  Omsk  in  Asiatic  Russia,  and 
near  Samara  some  distance  to  the  westward,  built  of  adobe  bricks. 
These  bricks  were  made  on  level  areas  of  cleaned  ground,  with- 
out wooden  forms,  by  lifting  and  dropping  balls  of  clay,  in  the 
manner  called  "batting"  by  potters.  No  grass  or  other  binder 
was  used  with  the  clay,  which  was  tramped  by  bare-footed 
women  in  pits,  and  sometimes  worked  by  large  wooden  wheeled 
Chilian  mills  drawn  by  horses.  The  bricks  about  a  foot  long, 
ten  inches  wide  and  eight  inches  thick,  were  made  in  the  spring 
after  the  spring  rains,  dried  in  the  sun  without  cover  all  sum- 
mer, and  then  built  into  walls  of  rectangular,  one  story,  houses. 
These  walls  were  laid  without  motar,  but  immediately  plastered 
with  clay,  which  plastering  was  repeated  every  year  after  the 
spring  rains ;  no  foundations  of  stone,  wood,  etc.,  were  placed 
under  the  walls,  which  were  set  on  earth  platforms  constituting 
the  whole  house  floor,  about  two  feet  above  the  surrounding 
level.  There  were  no  cellars  or  garrets  in  these  houses  which 
were  the  only  kind  of  dwellings,  except  a  few  log  houses,  built 
in  that  region  of  steppes  where  no  building  stone  existed,  and 
where  the  thermometer  in  winter  sometimes  went  down  to  75° 
fahrenheit  below  zero.  Similar  information  has  just  been  given 
me  by  Baron  Edward  Friesen,  of  Munich,  who  during  the  late 
war,  saw  similar  houses  built  of  sun  baked  bricks,  at  about  the 
same  latitude  in  Galicia.  About  the  same  time,  1918,  Miss 
Everett  of  Flourtown,  Pa.,  saw,  as  she  tells  me,  adobe  houses 
near  Bogota,  Chile. 

I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  learn  whether  the  pre-historic  peoples 
of  Mexico,  Central  and  South  America  used  adobe  before  the  time 
of  Columbus,  but  the  early  Spanish  writer,  Castaneda,  as  above 
quoted,  says  that  the  pre-historic  Indians  of  New  Mexico  made 
bricks  in  this  way,  as  seen  by  him  before  the  arrival  of  the 
Spaniards,  but  without  wooden  forms.  As  described  by  him  they 
mixed  wet  clay  upon  a  half  burnt  quenched  fire  of  sage  grass, 
which  operation,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  means  that  the  earth 
as  used  lacked  sufficient  clay,  and  required  a  binding  mixture  of 
grass,  easiest  reduced  by  the  Indians  to  serviceable  size  by  fire. 


478  NOTES  ON  ADOBE  BRICKS 

The  Casa  Grande,  a  pre-historic  dwelling  still  standing,  near 
Florence,  Arizona,  shows,  however,  that  another  still  more  in- 
teresting form  of  clay  house  construction  was  used  in  the  south- 
west by  Indians  in  pre-historic  days.  Mindeleff's  supposition,  as 
above  cited,  in  Mr.  Mann's  paper,  that  the  structure  and  mark- 
ings on  this  building  showed  that  its  walls  were  constructed  of 
plastic  clay  thrown  between  wicker  forms  which  later  had  been 
removed,  lifted,  replaced,  etc.,  as  the  building  went  on,  is  in 
great  part  corroborated  by  the  following: 

Thomas  W.  Besant  of  309  Park  Avenue,  New  York  City,  told 
me  he  had  seen  (in  1923)  a  family  of  native  Mexicans,  at  a  village 
called  Capri,  about  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  south  of  the 
United  States  border,  and  thirty  to  forty  miles  from  the  Pacific 
coast,  building  a  house  of  plastic  clay  in  reed  forms,  in  the  fol- 
lowing remarkable  manner: 

For  the  wall  forms,  two  parallel  rows  of  close  set,  three  foot 
long  reeds,  were  pushed  into  the  ground,  and  then  closely  cross 
meshed,  basket  fashion  (interlaced),  by  pushing  down  upon  them 
long  flexible  leaves  or  twigs.  The  two  vertical  but  flexible  wicker 
walls  thus  made,  standing  about  one  to  two  feet  apart  were 
stiffened  against  subsequent  mud  pressure  from^  within,  by  tying 
them  together,  across  the  intervening  opening,  at  frequent  in- 
tervals with  reed  twigs.  Plastic  clay  trampled  by  donkeys,  and 
probably  mixed  with  donkey  manure,  was  then  thrown  in  be- 
tween the  wicker  forms,  and  tramped  down  by  one  foot  of  the 
workman,  who  stood  astride  of  the  wicker  wall  with  his  other 
foot  outside  it  resting  on  a  platform,  which  platform  was  raised 
as  he  went  up.  As  the  clay  in  the  forms  rose,  he  heightened  his 
wicker  foniis,  withuot  removing  them,  by  pushing  down  vertical 
reeds  into  the  basketry  cross  meshing  as  before,  and  cross 
tying  inside  from  form  to  form  to  resist  the  outward  thrust  of 
the  mud.  The  forms  were  never  removed,  but  were  smeared 
smooth  on  the  outside  upon  the  clay  that  had  oozed  through  the 
meshes.  The  wall  then  finished  had  no  stone  foundation,  but 
rested  directly  on  the  ground.  A  final  outer  weather  coat  of 
probably  lime  and  sand  mortar  followed  its  completion. 

While  in  these  cases  the  clay  used  was  wet  and  plastic. 
Reese's  Enclyclopaedia,  written  a  hundred  years  ago,  describes, 
and  tries  to  introduce  into  England,  a  method  called  "pise,"  con- 


NOTES  ON  ADOBE  BRICKS  479 

sisting  of  clayey  earth  (not  in  a  wet  plastic  state),  but  semi-dry 
and  mealy,  tightly  rammed  between  very  rigid  forms,  and  well 
protected  with  weather  crusts  of  lime  and  sand  plaster.  Houses 
so  built  were  common  along  the  Rhone  about  1800.  Rudolph  P. 
Hommel  saw,  described  and  photographed  for  me,  Chinese  build- 
ing a  pise  house  wall  in  that  manner,  at  Kulig.  China,  in  July,  1923. 

According  to  this  definition  pise  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
plastic  clay,  and  Mendeleff's  supposition,  that  the  Casa  Grande 
was  built  of  pise  would  be  a  mistake. 

Still  another  form  of  earth  wall  construction  used  in  England 
and  called  "cob,"  is  referred  to  by  Reese,  and  carefully  distin- 
guished by  him  from  pise.  It  is  described  in  London's  Encyclo- 
paedia of  Cottage  and  Farm  Architecture  (London,  Longman, 
1846,  p.  49)  and  also  in  Cottage  Building  in  Cob,  Pise,  Chalk 
and  Clay,  by  Clough,  \\'illiams  Ellis,  (London  County  Life  Press, 
1920).  The  walls,  made  of  masses  of  loamy  earth  mixed  with 
straw,  well  pounded  or  tramped  by  oxen,  into  a  wet  mortar,  were 
set  up  without  forms  on  stone  foundations  one  foot  to  eighteen 
inches  high  in  layers  two  feet  wide,  in  placing  which,  one  man, 
with  a  two  or  three  pronged  fork,  passes  up  the  wet  cob  to  an- 
other who  tramps  it  down  upon  the  wall,  which  is  thus  built  up 
in  successive  layers,  with  intervening  time  intervals  of  several 
weeks,  to  allow  the  layers  to  harden.  The  first  layer  being  about 
four  feet  high,  and  the  later  ones  diminishing  in  height.  The 
work  was  begun  in  the  early  spring,  and  ended  if  possible  before 
winter.  As  each  extra  layer  is  placed,  the  previous  hardened 
layer  is  pared  down  smooth  on  its  vertical  faces  with  an  iron- 
bladed  tool  like  a  baker's  peel,  and  if  frost  intervenes  before  the 
house  roof  is  placed,  the  walls  are  thatched,  but  not  plastered  on 
the  outside  until  the  following  spring.  Loudon  does  not  describe 
the  flooring  or  roofing  of  these  houses  but  says  the  wooden  door 
and  lintel  frames,  resting  on  cross  pieces  where  nefcessary,  are  set 
in  during  building,  and  cut  open  afterward,  also  that  cob  houses 
were  then,  1846,  common  in  Devonshire,  but  unknown  in  many 
other  parts  of  England,  that  some  were  built  two  stories  high, 
and  that  a  cob  parsonage,  taken  down  in  1831,  had  been  built  in 
the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  kind  of  plaster  used  for  the 
outer  walls,  though  not  specified  by  Loudon,  was  probably  made 
of  lime  and  sand. 


480  NOTES    ON    ADOBE    BRICKS 

A  Still  further  method  of  wall  building  as  exemplified  in  a 
house  built  by  Nathan  Preston,  near  the  Plumstead  Meeting 
House,  about  1850,  shows  masses  of  lime  and  sand  mortar, 
formed  into  large  bricks  in  wooden  forms  without  bottoms, 
where  the  process  may  be  similar  to  that  called  "beton,"  de- 
scribed in  Reese,  and  invented  in  France  about  1800.  Mrs. 
Hampton  W.  Rice  called  attention  at  the  January  meeting  of  the 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society  to  this  house  built  by  her  grand- 
father. And  Samuel  Preston,  later  told  me,  over  the  telephone, 
that  he  had  helped  make  these  bricks  at  some  distance  from  the 
house  near  a  spring,  that  no  clay  but  only,  sand  and  lime  had 
been  used  in  them,  and  that  they  had  been  allowed  to  dry  all 
summer  while  covered  with  boards,  further  that  several  other 
houses  at  Carversville  and  one  at  Peter's  Corner,  had  previously 
been  built  in  the  same  way,  while  Mr.  Mann  noticed  the  barn 
thus  built  of  about  the  same  construction  and  date  by  Dr.  Mc- 
Coy of  Doylestown. 

An  old  house  at  322  Buttonwood  street,  Philadelphia,  built 
about  1820,  demolished  in  1923,  and  then  examined  for  me  (c  f 
Old  Houses  in  Bucks  County  Ms.,  Vol.  6,  page  379),  was  found 
to  be  thus  built  of  large  cast  blocks  made  of  sandy  clay  mixed 
with  lime,  one  of  which  blocks  is  now  in  our  museum.  Though 
cast  like  adobe,  the  block  is  clearly  not  adobe,  because  it  is  so 
much  mixed  with  lime  that  its  fragments  will  not  dissolve  in 
water  over  night.  Similar  lime  hardened  clay,  which  will  not 
dissolve  in  water  over  night,  appears  as  the  mortar  used  in  the 
old  house  built  in  1768,  now  (1923)  standing  in  Charles  Ulmer's 
field  at  the  Cross  Keys,  and  in  several  other  old  Bucks  county 
houses,  which  I  have  examined.  (See  Dating  of  Old  Houses,  p. 
536  post.) 

At  my  suggestion,  Mr.  Frank  K.  Swain,  this  summer  (1925) 
examined  several  cob-built  houses  in  southwestern  England, 
among  which  was  that  lived  in  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  and  also, 
following  the  notes  by  Williams-Ellis,  above  referred  to,  visited 
the  village  of  Larling  in  Norfolk,  England,  in  which  the  house 
walls,  sometimes  perhaps  over  100  years  old,  are  built  of  large 
blocks  of  unburnt  clay  (about  12  by  18  by  6  inches  in  size),  cast 
in  moulds.  The  walls  are  set  on  burnt-brick  foundations,  and 
are  plastered  with  lime  and  sand  mortar,  variously  colored,  and 


NOTES  ON  ADOBE  BRICKS  481 

sometimes  extra  waterproofed  with  a  coat  of  coaltar.  But 
whether  these  unfired  clay  bricks,  revealed  in  some  places  by 
scaled-off  plaster,  are  true  sun-baked  bricks  (adobes),  or  have 
been  hardened  by  mixture  with  lime,  as  in  the  Buttonwood  house, 
he  was  unable  to  learn. 

A  letter  recently  received  by  Dr.  B.  F.  Fackenthal,  Jr.,  from 
the  Cairo  Museum,  informs  him  that  the  Arabs  in  Egypt  are  now 
building  houses  of  sun-baked  unfired  clay  bricks  made  of  Nile 
alluvium,  either  mixed  or  not  mixed  with  straw  according  to  its 
greater  or  less  liability  to  crack  in  drying.  I  have  not  been  able, 
however,  to  learn  how  the  modern  Egyptians  or  any  modern  north 
Africans,  make  these  bricks,  whether  they  ever  mix  lime  with 
them,  or  whether  they  ever  build  houses  of  cob  or  pise,  or  with 
walls  cast  solid  with  plastic  clay  as  seen  in  Mexico  by  Mr. 
Besant. 

According  to  Dr.  Birch  (History  of  Ancient  Pottery,  1873 
edition)  :  The  building  bricks  of  Bablyon  and  Assyria  were  gen- 
erally moulded  in  boxes  either  square  or  rectangular,  and  were 
either  fire  burnt  and  sometimes  glazed  or  sun  dried  (adobe). 
They  were  generally  mixed  with  "stubble  or  vegetable  fiber"  or 
"chopped  grass  or  reeds",  but  sometimes  made  of  pure  clay. 

The  ancient  Egyptian  bricks  were  made,  in  wooden  moulds, 
of  Nile  alluvial  clay,  more,  sandy  near  the  river,  and  purer  inland, 
generally  mixed  with  chopped  wheat  or  barley  straw,  which  the 
captive  Jewish  brickmakers  in  Egypt  were  ordered  to  find  for 
themselves.  (Exodus  V.  7)  or  crushed  fragments  of  pottery, 
but  sometimes  of  pure  clay.  They  were  about  13  to  20  inches 
long  by  8  inches  wide,  and  5  inches  thick,  and  between  the  18th. 
and  21st.  dynasty  stamped  with  wooden  stamps  with  the  name 
of  priests  or  rulers. 

Sir  G.  Wilkinson's  celebrated  book  The  Ancient  Egyptians, 
overlooks  the  very  interesting  possible  survival  of  ancient  brick- 
making  processes  in  Egypt  or  northern  Africa. 

The  whole  subject  of  house  construction  by  means  of  earth  or 
clay,  whether  semi-dry  or  plastic  or  of  unbaked  bricks,  would  well 
repay  further  study,  and  it  seems  probable  that  in  countries  where 
the  earliest  houses  were  thus  built,  no  one  need  be  surprised  that 
no  architectural  remains  have  survived. 


The  Zithers  of  the  Pennsylvania  Germans. 

BY  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,   January   20,    1923.) 

A  TIME  long  past  through  social  changes  rather  than  years, 
has  left  in  our  museum  eleven  remarkable  narrow  box 
shaped  stringed  musical  instruments,  so  little  known,  so 
forgotten  or  overlooked  by  musical  antiquaries,  yet  so  linked 
with  the  technical  history  of  music,  as  to  demand  particular  at- 
tention. Locally  known  among  the  Pennsylvania  Germans,  who 
made  and  played  them,  by  no  other  name  than  zithers  (pro- 
nounced by  them  "zitter"),  all  were  found  in  Bucks  county, 
and  eastern  Pennsylvania  in  the  last  twenty-five  years;  they  are 
here  classified  and  described  under  two  groups,  namely,  lirst,  as 
plectrum  zithers,  or  zithers  played  by  striking  the  strings  with  a 
quill  or  stick  (the  plectrum)  held  in  the  hand,  and  second,  as 
bow  zithers  or  zithers  played  with  a  bow. 

PLECTRUM   ZITHERS. 

There  are  seven  instruments,  here  called  plectrum  zithers,  in 
the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  which 
though  superficially  resembling- the  bow  zithers  next  described, 
on  examination,  dififer  considerably  in  construction.  They  are 
all  thinner  and  longer  than  the  latter.  Their  strings,  far  more 
numerous,  are  always  of  wire;  they  lack  bows,  and  their  bridges 
and  keys  are  differently  made  and  differently  placed. 

Museum  No.  13605  (Figure  1)  typical  of  all,  is  a  rectangular 
box  3  feet  6  inches  long,  made  of  thin  pieces  3/16  to  ys  inch, 
of  soft  wood,  glued  and  pegged  together  without  nails,  and 
against  a  rectangular  wooden  block  at  the  base  3^  to  3  inches 
square,  by  1  inch  thick,  and,  at  the  upper  end,  to  a  solid  wooden 
head  piece,  15  inches  long,  with  ornamental  scallops  on  its  left 
side,  holding  the  keys. 

The  eight  steel  wire  strings  are  stretched  about  one-half  inch 
apart  from  a  straight  row  of  headless  iron  pins,  driven  into  the 
base  block  about  one  inch  below  its  upper  rounded  corner,  and 
extending  thence  to  three  groups   of   short  square   topped   iron 


Figure   1 

SEVEN    PLECTRUM    ZITHERS    IK    THE    MUSEUM    OF    THE 
BUCKS   COUNTY   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS  483 

keys  screwed  into  the  top  of  the  head  piece  and  tightened  with  a 
loose  key,  hke  a  clock  key  (missing).  Two  of  these  strings  on 
the  left  side  extend  over  a  row  of  frets  made  and  placed  like 
those  of  the  bow  zithers  later  described,  and  passing  over  a 
bridge  entirely  unlike  the  bridges  of  the  bow  zithers,  namely  a 
low  flat  one-quarter  inch  high  w^ooden  strip  wire-edged  on  its 
top,  and  glued  down  upon  the  top  board  about  three  inches  from 
the  base  of  the  latter.  Six  of  the  strings,  namely  those  not  cross- 
ing the  frets,  do  not  cross  this  bridge  but  are  lifted  from  the  top 
board  at  their  upper  ends  by  notched  iron  pegs  set  close  to  their 
respective  keys  in  the  head  piece,  while  a  high  heavy  fret  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  instrument  again  serves  to  lift  the  two  strings 
engaged  clear  of  their  frets. 

This  upper  fret  is  heavier  and  longer  than  the  rest,  so  as  to 
catch  not  only  the  two  engaged  strings,  but  all  four  strings  from 
the  first  group  of  keys,  and  all  the  frets  are  stapled,  not  upon  a 
fret  board,  but  directly  upon  the  top  of  the  instrument.  Includ- 
ing this  upper  fret  the  frets  are  fifteen  in  number,  set  on  the  left 
side  of  the  instrument,  all  otherwise  of  the  same  length  and  placed 
at  musical  intervals  so  as  to  produce  a  scale  of  musical  notes 
marked  in  ink  on  the  top  board  of  the  zither  between  the  frets. 
The  short  and  wooden  bridge  engage  only  two  of  the  eight  strings 
upon  the  instrument.  The  sound-hole  just  above  the  bridge  con- 
sists of  thirteen  circular  perforations  around  a  large  center  hole. 

Variations  in  Construction.  Though  this  zither  reasonably 
describes  the  six  others  in  the  collection,  the  instruments  shown 
herewith  vary  considerably  in  construction.  A,  C,  F  and  G  have 
eight  strings,  B  has  five,  and  D  and  E  have  nine.  The  number  of 
keys  in  the  various  groups  varies  in  consequence.  The  wire 
frets  always  stapled  on  the  left  edge  of  the  instrument  are  al- 
ways fifteen  in  number  except  in  G,  which  shows  only  twelve. 
They  engage  two  strings  in  A,  B  and  G,  and  three  in  C,  E  and  F. 
In  G,  six  of  the  strings  namely  those  not  crossing  the  frets  are 
wire  wrapped.  G  is  much  smaller  than  the  other  instruments. 
The  sound-holes  are  always  on  the  upper,  and  never  on  the  under 
sides  of  the  instruments,  and  as  shown,  vary  in  design.  The 
under  side  of  one  is  illustrated  in  D.  The  keys  otherwise  set  in 
three  groups  appear  in  B  in  a  single  group,  and  in  B  the  upper 


484  THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS 

heavy  fret,  above  noted,  crosses  the  entire  instrument,  otherwise 
this  fret  only  catches  the  strings  from  the  first  or  lower  group 
of  keys. 

Some  of  the  instruments  are  stained  a  reddish  brown,  others 
retain  the  natural  color  of  the  wood.  Four  of  them,  namely  D, 
E,  F  and  G  appear  to  have  been  made  by  the  same  hand. 

ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY  OF  THE  PLECTRUM   ZITHER. 

None  of  them  came  from  Bucks  county,  but  all  from  the  Penn- 
sylvania German  region  northwest  of  it,  i.  e.,  Northampton, 
Berks,  Lebanon  and  probably  Montgomery  counties.  All  were 
bought  from  dealers,  except  G,  purchased  from  a  private  indi- 
vidual in  Bethlehem  for  twenty  dollars. 

No  traditional  evidence  has  appeared  as  to  how  they  were 
played,  but  two  quills,  either  of  goose  or  turkey,  about  three  and 
one-half  inches  long  survived  and  came  with  E,  as  shown  in  the 
illustration,  and  may  have  been  used  as  plectra.  Mr.  Lapp  of 
Doylestown  township,  acquainted  only  with  the  bow  zither,  never 
heard  of  zithers  being  played  by  plucking  their  notes  whether 
with  the  fingers,  a  quill  or  a  stick.  None  of  the  instruments  of 
this  group  have  legs,  catgut  strings  or  sound-holes  on  the  bot- 
tom. The  well-known,  many  stringed  Tyrolese  table  zithers,  also 
played  with  a  plectrum,  may  have  been  derived  from  them,  for 
Herman  Newdel  in  the  Musikalisches  Conversations  Lexicon,  Ber- 
lin 1879,  Vol.  II,  page  496,  says  (without  describing  the  method 
of  playing)  that : 

"In  Thurginia  the  peasants  are  still  (1879)  using  a  zither  with  four 
metallic  double  strings  in  three  different  sizes.  The  capacity  of  each 
is  two  octaves.  In  recent  times  another  kind  of  zither  has  been 
brought  to  great  perfection.  This  modern  zither  was,  until  about  forty 
years  ago,  only  known  as  a  peasant  instrument  among  the  inh'abitants 
of  the  Styrian  Salzburger  and  Bavarian  Alps  in  the  different  valleys 
of  which  there  were  known  to  be  different  types  of  this  instrument. 
Some  of  these  zithers  from  Halle  in  Pinzgau  and  Mittenwald  dating 
from  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  are  preserved  in  the 
museums  at  Munich  and  Salzburg,  and  in  private  collections." 

BOW   ZITHERS. 

There  are  five  of  these  differently  constructed  and  differently 
played  instruments  in  the  museum,  three  of  which  are  shown 
in  the  etching  (Figure  2)  and  of  which  C  will  serve  as  a  type. 


Figure  2 

THREE   OF   THE   FIVE    BOW   ZITHERS    IN    THE    MUSEUM    OF    THE 
BUCKS   COUNTY   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY. 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS  485 

This  instrument  is  a  tapering  box  2  feet  7  inches  long,  8  inches 
square  at  the  base  and  6  inches  at  the  top,  made  of  thin  strips  of 
soft  wood  glued  to  the  heavy  solid  wooden  head  and  base  pieces. 
The  top  piece  or  block  with  an  ornamental  downward  curl  is 
perforated  with  a  large  rectangular  hole  for  the  insertion  of  the 
keys  and  strings,  three  in  number,  now  restored  but  originally 
made  of  catgut,  and  exactly  resembling  violin  strings,  set  about 
one  inch  apart,  along  the  left  side  of  the  instrument.  They  are 
fastened  at  the  base  of  the  instruments  to  three  wooden  knobbed 
pegs  driven  into  the  bottom  piece  about  half-an-inch  below  the 
top,  and  extend  along  the  full  length  of  the  zithers  to  the  keys, 
through  the  key-orifice  in  the  top  piece.  These  keys  are  not 
home  made,  but  of  common  violin  type,  and  inserted  trans- 
versely, two  on  the  right,  and  one  on  the '  left  of  the  top 
piece.  There  are  eighteen  wire  frets,  namely  short  pieces 
of  iron  wire  about  1  inch  long,  with  bent  pointed  ends  driven  like 
staples  at  musical  intervals  on  a  3  inch  wide  12  inch  long  fret 
board.  This  latter  is  about  Yz  inch  thick  at  the  base  tapering  to 
about  ^  inch  at  the  top  hollow  underneath  and  glued  down  on 
the  top  of  the  instrument  close  along  its  left  side.  A  common 
violin  bow  (missing)  was,  I  learned,  used  with  this  zither.  The 
original  bridge  is  also  lost,  the  present  bridge  being  a  thin  flat 
topped  2  inches  long,  1  inch  high,  and  Y^  inch  thick  restoration. 
There  are  two  sound  holes  on  the  top  of  this  zither.  The  upper, 
a  1^  inch  circular  orifice  cut  through  the  top  board,  and  the 
lower  a  group  of  seven  3^  inch  holes  inserted  near  the  base,  just 
above  the  bridge  in  a  solid  circular  piece  of  hard  wood  glued 
into  a  hole.  Another  1  inch  round  sound  hole  5^  inches  from 
the  base,  not  shown,  perforates  the  smooth  bottom  of  this  instru- 
ment, which  bottom  is  furnished  with  two  Ya  inch  high  wooden 
pegs,  at  the  two  lower  corners,  to  lift  the  lower  end  of  the  zither 
from  the  ground. 

The  five  instruments  of  this  type,  of  which  only  three  are 
here  shown,  vary  considerably  in  construction.  The  original 
strings,  replaced  on  B  and  C,  are  missing  on  them  all,  but  there 
are,  or  judging  from  remaining  keys,  were  as  noted,  three  on  C, 
four  on  B  and  two  on  A,  three  on  museum  No.  13834,  and  seven 
on  museum  No.  17822,  which  instruments  I  will  call  D  and  E. 

In  B  they  are  not  of  catgut,  but  of  wire,  with  the  right  one  wire 


486  THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS 

wrapped,  and  in  A,  evidently  a  left-handed  instrument,  they  are 
set  to  the  right  on  the  top  board,  in  B  upon  its  middle,  but  other- 
wise always  along  its  left  side.  The  keys,  corresponding  to  the 
number  of  strings,  were  all  turned,  not  with  a  wrench  or  clock 
key,  but  between  the  thumb  and  forefinger,  they  are  common 
store  bought  violin  keys  in  C,  rude  home  made  wooden  pegs, 
probably  modern  restorations  in  B,  and  made  of  local  black- 
smith wrought  iron  with  perforated  thumb  pieces  in  A,  D  and  E. 
In  C  the  keys  are  screwed  into  the  right  and  left  side  of  the  top 
piece  through  the  rectangular  orifice  as  mentioned,  but  in  A,  B, 
and  D  and  E  which  lack  this  orifice,  screwed  vertically  downward 
into  the  solid  wood. 

There  are  no  frets  on  the  restored  instrument  B,  eighteen  in 
C,  and  sixteen  on  A,  D  and  E.  They  are  all  made  as  described, 
of  wire  staples  of  varying  length,  driven  at  musical  intervals 
along  the  left  edge  of  the  top  board  in  C,  D  and  E,  but  along 
the  right  edge  in  A, — directly  upon  the  top  of  the  instrument  in 
A.  but  otherwise  into  fret  boards  as  described,  and  always  so  as 
to  engage  one  string,  the  outermost  only.  As  remarked  before, 
the  restored  instrument  B  differs  from  them  all  in  having  its  four 
strings  and  fret  board  set  in  the  middle  of  the  instrument,  and 
may  therefore  have  been  played  like  a  violin. 

Bows.  According  to  information  given  by  Joseph  Lapp,  the 
bow,  now  lost,  originally  used  with  C,  was  not  home  made,  but 
a  common  modern  store  bought  violin  bow.  The  bows  in  A, 
a  wood  piece  14  inches  long,  and  in  B,  ditto  13  inches  long,  are 
home  made,  and  show  at  their  ends  orifices  for  pegging  in  the 
hair   (missing)  stretched  as  in  violin  bows. 

Bridges.  The  original  bridges  are  all  missing.  The  restored 
bridge  on  B  is  a  solid  round  topped  thin  strip  3}i  inches  long, 
34  inch  thick,  }i  inch  high,  and  on  C  a  flat  topped  restored 
ditto  2  inches  long,  yg  inch  thick,  and  1  inch  high,  propped  under 
the  strings,  as  shown,  towards  the  base  of  the  instrument.  None 
of  the  five  instruments  as  described,  except  C,  show  sound-holes 
or  legs  on  the  smooth  flat  under  sides.  Some  are  stained  a  red- 
dish brown,  and  others  show  the  natural  color  of  the  wood. 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS  487 

OWNERSHIP   AND   ORIGIN   OF   THE    INSTRUMENTS. 

Of  D  and  E  (not  here  shown)  nothing  more  is  known  than 
that  D  was  bought  about  1920  from  A.  H.  Rice,  a  dealer  in  an- 
tiquities, of  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  who  had  obtained  it  in  1919  in 
Berks  or  Montgomery  county;  E,  also  from  Mr.  Rice,  was  bought 
by  him  in  1921,  at  a  farm  sale,  in  Northampton  county,  Pa.  B 
was  given  to  the  writer  in  1897  by  Jacob  Gross,  formerly  a  Men- 
nonite  minister  and  schoolmaster,  then  living  on  King's  road.  New 
Britain  township,  Bucks  county.  Pa.  No  notes  were  taken  at  the 
time  concerning  this  instrument,  which  Mr.  Gross  said  he  had 
himself  made  and  played  upon  in  his  earlier  days,  probably  about 
1865.  It  had  long  lain  disused  and  out  of  repair  in  his  house,  and 
I  think  he  roughly  remounted  it  for  me,  namely  with  a  new 
bridge,  keys,  and  wire  strings,  in  1897. 

I  obtained  the  left  handed  instrument  A,  with  its  hairless  bow, 
and  lacking  its  strings  (also  about  1897),  from  Abraham  God- 
shawk,  a  Mennonite  schoolmaster,  then  living  near  the  old  (dis- 
used in  1922)  schoolhouse,  and  the  Mennonite  Meeting-house 
on  Deep  Run. 

But  our  chief  knowledge  concerns  zither  C,  which  was  ob- 
tained from  the  daughter  of  Joseph  Lapp,  the  latter  now  (1922) 
collector  of  taxes  for  Doylestown  township.  Joseph  Lapp,  a  Men- 
nonite, gives  me  the  following  novel  and  valuable  information, 
supplementing  previous  notes  taken  from  him  on  January  10,  1921. 

Mr.  Lapp  says  the  bow  zither,  C  (Figure  2,  Museum  No. 
5,251): 

"Was  made  by  his  father,  Henry  Lapp,  about  fifty-five  years  ago. 
Joseph,  then  in  his  boyhood,  lived  on  a  farm  in  Bedminster  township, 
Bucks  county,  adjoining  the  Ridge  road,  about  one  mile  southwest  of 
Keller's  Church.  His  father  not  only  played  it,  but  made  several  other 
instruments  like  it,  one  made  about  the  same  time,  1875,  for  a  Mr. 
Schrauger  of  Hilltown  township,  who  died  about  thirty  years  ago; 
also  another  for  a  person  unknown  to  him.  Joseph  Lapp  says:  My  father 
taught  English  and  German  at  Mood's  public  schoolhouse  in  Bed- 
minster township,  and  previously,  when  a  scholar  there,  about  1863, 
had  been  asked  by  the  teacher  to  bring  his  'zitter'  to  school  to  play  an 
accompaniment  to  the  singing  at  classes  called  "spelling  bees."  Father 
often  played  at  home,  singing  himself  while  playing  generally  German 
hymns,  such  as  were  sung  in  the  Mennonite  Meeting-house.  Among 
these  hymns  I  remember  one  called  'A.  B.  C.,'  and  another  called  'Spar 
Dein    Buse    Nicht,'    and    sometimes    'Home    Sweet    Home.'      He    never 


488  THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS 

used  wire  strings,  but  always  catgut  strings,  not  made  by  himself,  but 
bought  at  stores.  The  head-piece  of  this  instrument  and  the  com- 
mon violin  keys  fitted  into  it,  were  not  made  but  bought.  Also  the 
turned  piece  with  seven  holes,  inserted  for  sounding,  just  above  the 
bridge.  The  original  bridge  made  by  my  father  was  of  hard  wood, 
possibly  maple,  hollowed  at  the  bottom,  like  a  violin  bridge,  not  flat- 
topped  like  the  one  now  on  the  instrument,  but  curved  at  the  top, 
though  not  so  much  as  that  of  a  violin.  The  body  or  box  of  the  zither 
was  made  of  white  pine,  without  nails  or  pegs,  but  glued  together 
with  hot  glue.  The  bridge  was  glued  down  on  the  top  at  its  two 
points  of  contact.  The  fret-  board  was  made  of  walnut  or  cherry 
wood,  and  the  frets  made  of  wire  bought  at  the  store.  In  playing  this 
instrument  my  father  always  removed  or  pushed  back  the  tablecloth 
and  the  oilcloth  underneath  it,  and  set  the  instrument,  with  the  keys 
towards  his  left  arm,  upon  the  table.  He  always  played  standing  up, 
always  with  the  bow  held  in  his  right  hand,  and  never  with  a  quill  or 
bone  or  other  plectrum,  making  the  notes  only  on  one  string,  namely: 
the  one  on  the  outer  left  side  of  the  instrument,  pressing  down  upon 
this  string,  with  his  left  forefinger  not  directly,  but  with  a  goose-quill, 
about  four  inches  long,  held  horizontally  at  right  angles  to  the  string, 
and  which  he  slid  up  and  down  over  the  frets,  without  lifting  it,  and 
hence  in  no  sense  a  plectrum.  Occassionally  he  slid  the  bow  across  the 
other  two  strings,  which  always  sounded  the  same  note  or  drone.  My 
father  sometimes  played  slow  secular  tunes,  but  generally  hymns. 
He  played  by  note,  and  the  music  book  used  by  him  is  still  (1922)  m 
existence.  He  did  not  make  the  bow  for  this  instrument,  but  used 
a  common  violin  bow  which  he  had  bought.  He  never  made  bows 
for  any  of  the  'zitters'  constructed  by  him,  though  he  sometimes  re- 
plenished his  bows  with  loose  white  or  black  horsehairs,  pulled  from 
the  tails  of  our  own  horses.  This  hair  was  glued  and  pegged  into  the 
bow  in  the  usual  way." 

INFORMATION  OF  ISAAC  OVERHOLT. 

Further  information  concerning  these  instruments  came  from 
Isaac  Overholt  of  Pkmisteadville,  whose  father,  Abraham  Over- 
holt,  had  made  a  bow  zither  before  1844  and  played  upon  it 
about  forty  years  ago.  The  writer  saw  that  zither  sold  at  a 
sale  of  the  Overholt  property  in  1905,  when  it  was  bought  by  a 
person  then  of  Doylestown,  but  now  supposed  to  be  living  in  In- 
diana. It  was  loaned  to  the  writer  about  1897,  and  Isaac  Over- 
holt, who  well  remembers  it  and  often  heard  his  father  play  it, 
being  interviewed  on  February  9,  1918,  and  again  on  March  7, 
1922,  thus  answers  the  following  questions  concerning  it : 

Q.     How  many  strings  did  it  have?     A.     Three. 

Q.     Were  they  of  wire  or  of  catgut?    A.     Of  brass  wire. 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS  489 

Q.     How  was  the  instrument  played? 

A.     My  father  laid  it  on  a  table  before  him  with  its  neck  to  his  left 

arm  and  frets  on  the  side  nearest  him.     He  played  with  a  bow 

held   in    his   right   hand,    pointing   towards    the    left    side    of    the 

zitter,  and  at  right  angles  to  the  instrument. 
Q.     Did  it  have  frets?     A.     Yes. 
Q.     How  many  strings  passed  over  the  frets? 

A.     I  think  only  one,  but  I  am  not  sure;  there  may  have  been  two. 
Q.     Did  your  father  use  a  quill  or  bone  to  press  the  frets? 
A.     He  used  a  piece  of  bone  until  it  was  lost,  then  a  piece  of  hickory 

wood,  held  in  his  left  hand  and  pressed  horizontally  downward 

between  the  frets  and  parallel  to  them. 
Q.     Did  your  father  ever  hear  of  anyone  playing  without  a  bow? 
A.     Yes.     Visitors  sometimes  came  in  and  picked  up  the  bone  used  to 

press  down  the  frets,  and  used  it  as  a  plectrum.     Father  never 

played  without  a  bow. 
Q.     How  was  the  bow  made? 
A.     Of  hickory   wood    in    the   shape   of   a   violin    bow,    with   horsehair 

strings.     Father  made  it  himself.     He  pulled  hairs  from  the  tails 

of  our  horses  to  mount  it,  and  used  rosin. 
Q.     How  did  he  tune  the  instrument? 
A.     He   turned   the   keys   to   which   the   ends   of   the   wire    strings   were 

fastened,  between  his  thumb  and  forefinger. 
Q.     Did  he  lay  the  zither  on  the  table,  or  on  his  lap? 
A.     Always  on  the  table. 

Q.     What  tunes  or  songs  did  3'our  father  play? 
A.     Always  hymns.     The  instrument  was  too  slow  for  dance  or  lively 

music. 
Q.     About  what  date  did  your  father  make  this  zitter?    A.     before  1844. 
Q.     Did  he  take  of¥  the  tablecloth  before  playing  it? 
A.     Not  if  there  was  one  on  the  table  at  the  time. 
Q.     Did  he  play  standing  or  sitting?     A.     He  played  in  either  way. 
Q.     Did  you  ever  hear  the  instrument  called  by  any  other  name  than 
"zitter,"    for    instance    hommel?      A.      No.      I    always    heard    it 

called  a  "zitter." 
Q.     Was  the  bridge  curved  or  flat  on  the  top? 
A.     Flat  and  notched  for  the  strings. 
Q.     Did  anyone  but  Mennonites  play  these  instruments  and  were  they 

connected  with  the  services  of  the  Mennonite  church? 
A.     I  always  heard  it  played  among  the  Mennonites,  but  it  was  in  no 

way  connected  with  our  church  service.     My  father  played   his 

.own  zitter  only  for  his  pleasure  and  never  in  church.     He  never 

played  it  at  school.     I   heard  that  the   Leatherman  family,   also 

Mennonites,   living  north   of   Plumsteadville   had   owned   a   zitter. 

I    also   saw   another   one,    made    about    1840,    by    David    Meyers, 

who  lived  on  the   Stump  road  west  of   Hinkletown.      I   attended 

school  at  the   Deep   Run   Mennonite   German   schoolhouse   when 


490  THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS 

Samuel  Godshalk,  who  inscribed  the  music  notes  on  the  beams 
of  the  school  room,  taught  there. ^  His  father  Abraham  God- 
shalk, had  also  previously  taught  there,  but  I  never  knew  that 
Samuel  had  a  "zitter,"'  and  never  heard  one  played  at  school. 


Figure   3  '    ■ 

MODERN   GERMAN    BOW   ZITHER 

Although  the  instrument  thus  described  belongs  to  the  rare 
class  of  stringed  instruments  played  with  a  bow,  yet  not  held 
against  the  body  or  horizontally,  it  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
modern  German  bow  zither,  as  shown  in  Figure  3,  also  always 
bowed  in  playing  and  also  laid  flat  on  the  table.  The  latter  infor- 
mation I  learned  from  E.  J.  Albert,  musical  instrument  maker,  of 
124  South  Ninth  street,  Philadelphia,  who  furnished  us  with  the 
above  illustration.  This  is  a  flat  oval  fretted  instrument  about 
one  foot  long,  sometimes  round  bottomed  and  resting  on  pegs, 
and  sometimes  flat  bottomed,  with  four  wire  strings  stretched,  not 
along  its  side,  but  across  its  middle  and  played  like  a  violin. 
There  is  no  drone,  and  all  four  strings,  not  one  only,  are  used  to 
sound  the  notes.  The  still  more  modern  table  violin  is  a  violin  of 
the  usual  mounted  shape  with  legs,  etc.,  to  play  on  a  table  in  the 
same  way. 

This  modern  German  bow  zither  is  supposed  to  have  been  in- 
vented by  Johann  Petzmeyer  (b.  Austria.  1804;  d.  Munich, 
1885),  and  while  the  old  Bucks  county  bow  zither,  Fig.  2B,  being 
also  laid  on  a  table  and  played  like  a  violin,  may  be  classed  with 
it,  all  the  other  bow  zithers  in  our  collection  are  diflferently 
mounted,  and  differently  played.     Whether  Petzmeyer  copied  or 

1  For  papers  on  the  Mennonite  schoolhouse,  with  notes  of  music  on  the 
beams  and  blackboard,  with  illustrations  of  the  same,  see  our  transactions. 
Vol  2,  page  69,  and  Vol.  4,  page  533. 


# 


Figure   4 

NORWEGIAN  AND  DUTCH  ZITHERS   PROM   THE   SCHEUR- 
LEER  COLLECTION  AT  THE  HAGUE. 
By  kind  permission  of  Dr.  P.   Scheurleer. 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS  491 

adopted  his  bow  zither  from  either  of  these  earlier  instruments 
we  have  thus  far  been  unable  to  learn. 

In  1919  the  writer  had  found  that  the  Metrolopitan  Museum 
in  New  York  and  the  Pennsylvania  Aluseum  in  Memorial  Hall, 
Philadelphia,  each  possessed  an  instrument  of  this  type.  Also 
through  the  kind  information  of  Miss  Laura  Long,  and  Mr.  R. 
P.  Hommel,  that  two  pictures  by  Hans  Memling,  painted  about 
1490,  one  in  the  collection  of  Baron  Bethune.  at  Alost,  near 
Brussels,  and  one  in  the  Royal  Museum  at  Antwerp,  and  also  a 
wood  cut  by  Hans  Holbein  of  about  1525,  called  "Death  and  the 
Pedlar,"  in  his  series  known  as  the  "Dance  of  Death,"  show 
these  bow  zithers,  held,  however,  and  played,  in  an  impossible 
manner,  not  on  a  table,  but  in  the  air.  But,  no  information  was 
obtained  from  either  of  the  above  named  museums,  concerning 
the  instruments,  nor  from  the  publications  of  the  South  Kensing- 
ton Museum,  in  London,  the  various  -musical  dictionaries,  or 
from  C.  H.  Albert,  the  violin  maker  of  Philadelphia,  above  men- 
tioned, and  several  musical  instrument  makers  in  New  York 
and  elsewhere.  Then  when  a  letter  was  written  to  Salzburg 
concerning  the  origin  of  the  modern  Tyrolese  plectrum  zither 
(the  zither  par  excellence)  and  the  modern  German  bow  zither, 
said  in  Germany,  as  before  mentioned,  to  have  been  invented  by 
Johan  Petzmeyer  (b.  Austria,  1804;  d.  Munich,  1885),  failed  to 
give  any  new  information  as  to  how  or  when  either  the  Tyrolese, 
or  the  German  bow  zither,  might  have  been  derived  from  this 
ancient  instrument,  the  writer  asked  Mr.  R.  P.  Hommel,  on  a 
visit  to  Europe  in  1920,  to  inquire  concerning  it  at  the  Rijks 
Museum  in  Amsterdam,  and  at  the  National  Museum  in  Munich. 
Neither  of  the  latter  had  specimens  or  knew  anything  of  the 
instrvnnent,  but  Mr.  J.  W.  Enschede,  Herringacht  68,  Amster- 
dam, a  student  of  church  hymns,  and  of  the  origin  of  barrel 
organs,  showed  Mr.  Hommel  a  photograph  of  one  of  these  in- 
struments now  in  a  local  museum  in  Friesland,  and  Dr.  F. 
Scheurleer  (Laan  Van  Meerdevort  53  F,  The  Hague),  a  noted 
collector,  had  several  of  both  the  bow  and  plectrum  type  in  his 
collection. 

In  1921  the  latter  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Hommel,  in  which  he 
says  that  the  instrument  in  question  is  called  "Hommel"  or 
"Nordische   Balk"  in  the  Netherlands,  was  played  there  either 


492  THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS 

with  a  bow  or  plectrum,  and  is  described  in  a  Dutch  pamphlet, 
the  Bulletin  of  the  North  Netherlands  Musical  Society  (Tijide- 
schrift  Der  Vereeniging  voor  Noord  Nederlands  Miziekgeschie- 
denies — Loman,  Amsterdam,  1882,  part  I).  The  writer,  J.  C. 
Boers,  says  that  these  box-shaped  instruments,  two  to  three  feet 
long  and  with  three  or  four  strings  laid  fiat  on  a  table  in  playing, 
had  been  known  in  Friesland  in  1750  and  survived  there  in 
1846,  where  their  name  was  "Hommell'  or  "Noordische  Balg" 
(wood  stick). 

Boers  quotes  a  German  traveler,  J.  G.  Kohl,  who  vaguely  de- 
scribed an  instrument  of  this  kind  with  brass  strings,  called 
Hommel,  laid  upon  a  table,  and  played  with  a  quill  plectrum,  by 
an  old  woman  on  the  Isle  of  Fohr,  in  East  Friesland,  in  1846, 
when  the  latter  told  him  that  the  instrument,  supposed  to  have 
been  introduced  from  Holland,  and  then  nearly  obsolete,  had 
been  formerly  common  on  the  island,  that  it  was  sometimes  used 
for  dancing,  and  played  in  households  to  the  accompaniment  of 
other  instruments,  and  the  singing  of  Sunday  afternoon  hymns. 

Another  writer  quoted  in  the  pamphlet  named,  Nicholas 
Douwes,  organist  at  Tzum,  in  Friesland,  about  1750,  says  that 

"The  hollow  square  instrument  of  from  two  to  three  feet  long, 
sometimes  longer  or  shorter,  is  stringed  with  three  or  four  strings, 
with  a  comb  at  each  end,  over  which  the  strings  are  drawn  by  means 
of  a  brass  clamp.  The  melody  is  produced  only  on  the  first  string,  and 
the  others  have  almost  always  the  same  sound,  and  serve  sometimes 
the  purpose  of  bass.  The  playing  is  done  by  someone  with  two  small 
quills,  sliding  with  the  one  over  the  strings,  and  striking  with  the 
other  along  the  first  string  over  the  tones.  Others  go  with  the  bow 
over  the  strings  and  with  the  nail  of  the  left  thumb  strike  on  the 
first  string  over  the  tones,  and  play  also  the  melodies." 

In  Germany,  according  to  this  article  (date  not  given),  it  was 
called  "Scheidhold,"  (Woodstick)  "Hommel,"  (Bee)  or  "Spanish 
Hommel,"  and  there  played  sometimes  with  the  right  thumb,  but 
using  a  small  stick,  held  in  the  left  hand,  to  press  between  the 
frets,  as  previously  described. 

In  Tuscany,  Italy,  the  same  writer  says  that  the  instrument  was 
called  "Symphonia,"  and  supposes  it  to  have  been  anciently  used 
by  the  Romans.  In  France  it  was  called  "Buche,"  also 
"Espinette  des  Vosges,"  and  in  Russia  "Palaika." 

Diderot's    Encyclopaedia,    Original    Folio    Edition,    Paris    & 


"^^« 
^^w 


Figure  5 

ZITHER     (LEFT)     AND     TROMP     MARINES     FROM     THE 

SCHEURLEER   COLLECTION   AT    THE   HAGUE. 

By  kind  permission  of  Dr.  F.  Scheurleer. 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS  493 

Neuchatel,  Vol.  12,  Plates,  articles  Luthier,  Plate  4,  No.  6,  il- 
lustrates the  instrument  with  three  strings,  like  keys,  set  as  in  C, 
Figure  1,  through  a  hole  in  the  head-piece,  with  eighteen  frets, 
and  a  sound  hole  closely  resembling  C,  but  lacking  the  bow. 

Dr.  F.  Scheurleer,  above  mentioned,  again  writes  to  Mr.  Hom- 
mel  in  a  letter  dated  September  12,  1921,  as  follows: 

"I  beg  to  send  you  two  photographs  of  instruments  in  my  collection, 
Nos.  1,  2,  3  and  4  (See  Figures  4  and  5).  They  are  zithers  called  Hom- 
mel  or  Noordische  Balk.  No.  2  (Figure  4,  in  middle),  is  a  modern  Nor- 
wegian one.  Nos.  5  and  6  (Figure  5,  right)  are  trumpet  marines,  quite 
different  instruments.  These  ones  are  the  instruments  painted  by  Van 
Eyck,  Memling,  etc.  They  are  played  in  a  vertical  position.  Hommels 
always  in  a  horizontal  one,  and  generally  with  a  plectrum.  No.  1  (Fig- 
ure 4,  left)  shows  the  bottom  of  the  zither.  You  will  see  that  these 
and  the  trumpet  marines  are  two  quite  different  instruments." 

In  answering  this  letter,  April  24,  1922,  after  describing  our 
Pennsylvania  zithers  as  above,  and  enclosing  photographs  of 
both  kinds,  I  added  as  to  identification  of  the  instruments  in  the 
old  paintings  referred  to,  as  follows : 

"I  never  saw  any  picture  by  Van  Eyck  of  this  instrument  but  only 
three  reproductions  of  paintings;  1  in  the  Bethune  collection  at  Alost 
by  Memling,  another  in  the  gallery  at  the  Royal  Museum  at  Antwerp 
by  Memling,  and  3  in  the  wood  cut  of  Death  and  the  Pedlar  in  the 
Dance  of  Death  series  by  Holbein.  All  these  instruments  as  played  by 
angels  or  the  figure  of  death,  in  these  pictures,  are  held  in  an  impossible 
manner  either  for  Trump  Marine  or  Hommel,  probably  by  painters 
license.  All  are  being  played  with  the  bow,  not  plectrum,  all  are  too 
small  in  proportion  for  the  Trump  Marine,  none  show  the  narrow  neck 
of  the  latter  for  sliding  the  hand,  and  none  could  possibly  be  encircled 
by  the  hand,  like  the  Trump  Marine,  as  shown  in  your  photographs  of 
Trump  Marines.  I  cannot,  therefore,  agree  with  you  in  thinking  that 
these  instruments  in  these  pictures  are  Trump  Marines.  They  seem  to 
me  to  be  bow  Hommels,  painted  in  cases  where  the  introduction  of  a 
table  might  have  thrown  the  picture  out  of  balance.  At  all  events  as 
shown  the  playing  is  impossible." 

From  the  recent  investigations  of  Miss  Loraine  Wyman,  Mr. 
Cecil  J.  Sharp  and  other  collectors  of  American  folk  music,  it 
further  appears  that  the  instrument,  whether  played  with  a  bow 
or  a  plectrum,  is  still  in  use  in  the  secluded  mountain  regions  of 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  where  the  mountaineers  who  may  have 
brought  it  with  them  from  Britain  about  150  years  ago,  call 
it  the   "Dulcimore,"  and  use  it  to   accompany  their   singing  of 


494 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS 


Figure   6 

THE    KENTUCKY 
DULCIMORE 


English  and  Scotch  ballads..  Figure 
6,  shows  one  of  these  so-called  Dulci- 
mores,  kindly  presented  to  the  Bucks 
County  Historical  Society  by  Miss 
Loraine  Wyman,  authoress  of  "Lone- 
some Tunes,"  who  obtained  it  in  1915 
in  Kentucky.  It  was  made  (so  says 
a  paper  pasted  inside  of  it)  by  Mr. 
E.  Thomas  of  Bath,  Kentucky,  from 
whom  Miss  Wyman  bought  it.  It 
is  33  inches  long,  5%  inches  at  widest 
part  and  2%  inches  thick,  curved 
on  the  sides.  Its  keyboard  sets  in  the 
middle  and  has,  or  had,  three  wire 
strings,  one  of  which  to  the  left,  is 
fretted,  and  plays  the  tune,  while  the 
two  others  tuned  in  unison  a  fifth  be- 
low the  tune-string,  are  drone  strings. 
According  to  the  information  of  Mrs. 
Luigi  Zande  of  the  Pine  Mountain 
Settlement  School.  Harlan  county, 
Kentucky,  Jan.  24,  1922,  it  is  still 
played  in  the  mountains,  by  sliding  a 
quill  horizontally  over  the  fretted 
string  with  the  left  hand,  while  strik- 
ing the  instrument  with  another  quill, 
or,  a  leather  plectrum,  or  as  shown  in 
the  illustration  Figure  7,  with  a  bow 
in  which  case  the  "Dulcimore"  is 
either  again  laid  flat  on  the  table  or 
rests  with  its  lower  end  on  the  player's 
lap  and  its  upper  (the  key  end)  pro- 
jecting, as  here  shown,  upwards  over 
the  edge  of  the  table. 

J.  C.  Boers,  the  writer  of  the  Dutch 
pamphlet,  herein  quoted,  who  refers 
to  the  great  difficulty  of  obtaining  in- 
formation   on    the    subject    and    the 


THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PEXXSVLVAXIA  GERMANS  495 

method  of  tuning,  etc.,  makes  no  clear  classification  of  the  two 
kinds  of  instruments,  but  in  general  describes  most  of  them  as 
played  with  a  plectrum,  with  a  vague  reference  to  some  played 
with  a  bow.  He  gives  no  exact  description  of  the  playing, 
nor  does  he  describe  in  any  case  the  bows,  or  the  two  bow 
zithers  or  hommels,  which  he  shows  with  their  bows  in  his  sec- 
ond pamphlet  illustration,  not  here  reproduced,  which  latter  was 
inserted,  not  in  his  own  article,  but  out  of  place  in  another  part 
of  the  musical  journal.  Nevertheless,  that  the  zithers  thus  de- 
scribed by  him  and  illustrated,  are  indcntical  in  type  with  those 
in  our  museum,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 


Figure  7 
PLATING  THE  DULICMORE  IN  KENTUCKY 

CONCLUSION. 

In  the  confused  and  somewhat  unsatisfactory  information 
thus  gathered,  it  appears  that  we  have  found  in  Bucks  county, 
and  eastern  Pennsylvania,  twelve  remarkable,  obsolete,  and  little- 
known  stringed  musical  instruments,  shown  in  Figs.  1  and  2, 
which  though  superficially  resembling  each  other,  dififer  in  their 
construction,  and  method  of  playing,  and  may  be  clearly  divided 
into  two  classes,  those  played  with  a  plectrum,  and  those  played 
with  a  bow.  Also  that  these  instruments,  in  whatever  way  plaved. 
have  long  been  used  under  various  names  in  Europe.  That  they 
may  have  been  known  to  the  ancient  Romans,  and  are  probably, 
if  not  certainly,  identical  with  the  instruments  shown  in  pictures 


496  THE  ZITHERS  OF  THE  PENNSYLVANIA  GERMANS 

by  Memling  and  Holbein,  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 

More  definitely  as  to  the  first  class,  the  Plectrum  Zithers,  we 
have  learned  but  little,  except  the  mere  fact  of  their  existence 
among  the  Pennsylvania  Germans,  and  the  certainty  that  as  they 
all  lack  bridges,  they  could  not  have  been  played  with  a  bow. 
Otherwise  our  efiforts  to  discover  how  when  and  where  they  were 
made  or  played,  or,  through  correspondence,  to  associate  them 
directly  with  the  history  or  origin  of  the  great  Tyrolese  Plectrum 
Zither  of  modern  times,  have  failed. 

On  the  other  hand  we  have  learned  that  the  bow  zithers,  now 
entirely  disused  and  generally  forgotten  in  Bucks  county,  were 
made  near  Doylestown  as  late  as  1870 ;  that  in  playing  them  the 
player  stood  up  holding  the  bow  in  his  right  hand,  when  the  zither 
lay  along  the  edge  of  the  table,  on  which  he  played  it,  with  the  key 
end  towards  his  left  arm.  In  his  left  hand  he  held  horizontally  a 
goose  quill  or  a  small  stick  about  three  inches  long  and  one- fourth 
inch  thick.  This  he  did  not  use  as  a  plectrum  but  pressed  down 
on  string  No.  1  only,  so  as  to  press  the  latter  against  the  frets 
and  so  by  means  of  the  bow.  held  in  his  right  hand  make  the 
notes  on  that  string  alone  which  was  nearest  him  on  the  outer 
edge  of  the  instrument.  The  other  strings,  however,  he  tuned 
them,  produced  a  drone  whenever  he  chose,  by  tilting  the  bow 
down  upon  them  to  suit  his  taste.  There  were  bridges  like  violin 
bridges  on  all  these  instruments  as  shown  in  Figure  A,  but  the 
original  strings  were  probably  always  of  catgut  not  wire. 

We  have  also  learned  that  these  very  rare  so-called  bow  "zit- 
ters,"  almost  unknown  to  musical  antiquaries,  were  in  Bucks 
county,  Pennsylvania,  invariably  associated  with  the  Mennonites, 
a  pious  sect,  which  came  to  Pennsylvania  about  1720,  and  that 
they  were  used  by  them  only  as  a  pasttime,  sometimes  to  play 
slow  secular  tunes,  though  generally  hymns,  and  never  associated 
with  their  church  services  or  any  religious  ceremonies. 

Though  they  may  be  traced  to  Friesland  and  northern  Hol- 
land, where  they  survived  until  about  1846,  there  is  no  reason  for 
supposing  that  the  Mennonites  first  heard  of  them  in  their  pas- 
sage through  Friesland  on  their  way  to  America,  or  brought  them 
thence,  since  known  by  various  names,  the  instruments  had  been 
long  previously  in  use  in  Russia,  France,  Italy,  and  Germany,  and 


THE  PATH  THAT  LED  TO  PLAYWICKY  497 

must  have  long  antedated  the  modern  German  bow  zither,   in- 
vented by  Petzmeyer,  early  in  the  19th  century. 

How  far  these  bow  played  zithers  from  Pennsylvania  are  to  be 
associated  with  the  origin  of  all  bow  played  stringed  instru- 
ments remains  to  be  learned.  And  it  seems  remarkable  that 
musical  antiquaries  have  not  given  a  clearer  account  of  this 
unique  instrument,  which  when  played  with  a  bow,  is  not,  like 
many  of  its  kind,  held  against  the  body,  but  laid  upon  a  table. 


The  Path  That  Led  to  the  Indian  Village  of  Playwicky. 

BY  MATTHIAS  H.   HALL,  WRIGHTSTOWN,  PA. 
(Playwicky  Meeting,   June   16,   1923.) 

IN  the  purchase  of  land  from  the  Indians  in  1682,  by  the  agent 
of  William  Penn,  the  line  of  purchase  reached  the  corner 
white  oak,  which  John  Watson  said  stood  on  the  Hampton 
farm,  a  mile  east  of  the  village  of  Wrightstown,  Bucks  county. 
In  1875,  I  moved  to  that  farm,  and  while  living  there  learned 
that  the  corner  white  oak  mentioned  in  the  purchase  of  the  land 
from  the  Indians,  stood  on  that  farm ;  I  therefore  undertook  to 
locate  the  path  and  the  site  of  the  Indian  village  of  Playwicky. 
In  a  former  paper  read  before  this  society  (See  Vol.  Ill,  p. 
332)  I  claimed  that  a  lane  passed  entirely  across  the  Hampton 
farm  near  a  large  white  oak  that  stood  at  the  head  of  a  stream 
on  the  farm,  and  that  that  was  the  path  that  led  to  Playwicky. 
I  still  think  it  was  correct,  although  the  Indian  village-site  was 
near  Isaac  Lacey's,  as  claimed  by  Dr.  Smith.  This  has  been 
proved,  beyond  any  doubt,  to  have  been  an  error,  but  was  a  site 
of  an  Indian  village,  but  not  of  Playwicky.  Several  years  ago  I 
asked  Wilhemina  Trego,  who  was  a  daughter  of  Peter  Catell,  if 
she  knew  of  any  Indian  village-sites,  she  replied  that  her  mother 
told  her  of  one  where  there  were  wagon  loads  of  turtle  shells, 
near  the  west  end  of  Bowman's  Hill.  When  Gen.  Davis  decided 
to  revise  his  History  of  Bucks  County,  he  told  me  that  he  would 
give  me  credit  for  all  information  I  would  give  him ;  I  therefore 


498  THE  PATH  THAT  LED  TO  PLAYWICKY 

gave  him  an  account  of  the  turtle  shell  marked  village-site,  along 
with  other  history.  Another  writer,  trying  to  conceal  that  they 
were  copying  from  my  writing,  said  the  turtle  shell-marked  In- 
dian village-site,  was  on  the  western  slope  of  Bowman's  Hill.  I 
therefore  decided  if  possible  to  find  that  Indian  village-site,  for 
they  always  left  some  tools  or  chips  to  indicate  where  the  sites 
were.  I  traveled  over  and  around  Bowman's  Hill  time  and  time 
again,  visiting  every  likely  place  in  the  neighborhood,  and  found 
that  the  village-site  had  been  on  the  Seth  VanPelt  farm,  half  a 
mile  west  of  Bowman's  Hill,  directly  opposite  from  where  the 
road  from  Wrightstown  to  Bowman's  Hill  strikes  the  Lurgan 
road,  at  or  near  the  turtle  shell-marked  village-site. 

Chapman,  in  his  early  history  of  Wrightstown,  said  that  our 
first  roads  were  laid  out  on  Indian  paths.  This  is  very  reason- 
able to  believe ;  they  were  first  used  as  bridle  paths,  then  for  carts 
and  wagons.  This  road,  from  Wrightstown,  used  to  be  known  as 
the  "Old  Wrightstown  Road,"  and  was  evidently  laid  out  on  an 
Indian  path.  It  was  first  laid  out  as  a  road  in  1733,  but  finding 
that  it  was  not  quite  the  right  place  for  carts  and  wagons,  it  was 
changed  in  1763.  It  is  quite  reasonable  to  believe  that  Indians 
had  paths  from  one  village  to  another,  and  it  was  known  that 
there  was  an  Indian  village  near  the  mouth  of  Pidcock's  creek. 
When  the  Wrightstown  road  or  Indian  path  reached  the  turtle 
shell  marked  village-site,  it  turned  at  a  right  angle  and  went  al- 
most direct  to  or  near  the  Indian  village-site  at  the  mouth  of  Pid- 
cock's crceek.  These  are  links  in  a  chain  of  evidence,  that  this 
road  was  laid  out  upon  an  Indian  path. 

Davis'  History  of  Bucks  County,  tells  us  that  the  Durham  road 
was  laid  upon  an  Indian  path,  and  Warren  S.  Ely  tells  me  that 
the  records  of  Bucks  county  give  an  account  of  an  Indian  village 
near  the  west  end  of  Buckingham  Mountain.  There  are  other 
links  to  prove  that  the  Durham  road  was  laid  out  on  an  Indian 
trail,  and  was  intersected  at  Wrightstown  by  the  Indian  paths 
heading  from  the  Indian  village  at  Pidcock's  creek  to  the  turtle 
shell  village-site,  and  on  to  the  Indian  village-site  near  Isaac 
Lacey's,  where  it  was  intersected  by  the  Indian  path  or  lane 
across  the  Hampton  and  Lacey  farms,  and  then  on  to  Bridgetown, 
where  probably  it  reached  a  path  leading  from  the  Delaware  river 
to  Playwicky,  which  also  passed  over  the  Indian  village-site  at 


THE  PATH  THAT  LED  TO  PLAYWICKV  499 

the  Cornell  farm,  near  the  junction  of  the  three  streams.  Thus 
making  a  continuous  path  from  the  corner  white  oak,  on  the 
Hampton  farm,  to  Playwicky.  Today  we  say  that  the  Durham 
road  leads  to  Bristol,  at  the  time  of  the  purchase  of  this  land  from 
the  Indians,  it  was  part  of  the  Indian  path  that  led  to  Playwicky. 

From  the  best  evidence  I  have  been  able  to  gather,  and  by 
frequent  searches  extending  back  over  forty-five  years  or  more, 
I  was  convinced  that  Playwicky  was  on  the  VanArtsdalen  farm 
at  or  near  the  foot  of  the  hill,  almost  opposite  to  the  limestone 
quarry.  Before  the  quarry  was  opened  the  spring  was  a  gushing 
fountain  of  ten  or  twelve  inches.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
Indians  had  both  a  winter  and  a  summer  camp,  and  this  was 
probably  a  summer  camp,  beinng  on  a  hill  where  they  could  get 
better  breezes  and  also  plenty  of  shade. 

About  two  hundred  yards  distant,  on  the  adjoining  farm  across 
the  ravine,  there  is  a  spring  of  water  known  by  tradition  as  the 
"Squaw  Spring."  Between  this  spring  and  the  Indian  village- 
site,  on  the  VanArtsdalen  farm,  there  is  a  path  or  road  running 
north  and  south,  that  was  traveled  by  white  people  going  to  and 
from  the  Bridgetown  pike,  just  as  the  Indians  probably  did  two 
hundred  years  ago.  The  water  running  down  this  path,  during 
times  of  rain,  has  marked  it,  and  it  will  probably  be  so  marked  to 
the  end  of  time.  A  few  feet  from  where  white  men  crossed  the 
ravine,  with  its  stream  of  water,  there  are  three  embankments 
about  ten  feet  apart  evidently  thrown  up  by  the  Indians,  they  are 
about  two  feet  high  and  about  ten  or  twelve  feet  long.  When  I 
first  discovered  them  I  thought  they  might  have  been  Indian 
graves,  but  since  then  I  was  informed  by  people  who  know  more 
about  archaeology  than  I  do,  that  Indians  planted  their  corn  on 
such  ridges,  and  that  these  may  have  been  part  of  an  Indian  gar- 
den for  use  of  the  village  close  by. 

On  an  old  map  bearing  date  1681,  there  is  an  Indian  path 
shown  running  from  the  Falls  of  the  Delaware,  at  Morrisville,  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Susquehanna  river.  I  think  it  just  possible  and 
probable  that  this  path  passed  near  Playwicky  and  the  Indian 
fields,  marked  thereon,  were  also  near  Playwicky.  In  conclusion, 
I  have  followed  this  Indian  path  from  the  corner  white  oak  to 
about  the  same  distance  Jrom  Squaw  Spring. 


An  Attempt  to  Find  the  Site  of  the  Indian  Town  of  Playwicky. 

BY  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Playwicky  Meeting,   June    16,    1923.) 

BECAUSE  William  Penn's  old  East  Pennsylvania  Indian 
purchase  Deed  of  1683,  preceeding  the  "Walking  Pur- 
chase" Deed  of  1737,  describes  its  northern  boundary,  as 
encountering  an  Indian  path,  "That  leadeth  to  the  Indian  town  of 
Playwicky,"  the  name  "Playwicky"  has  long  been  familiar  to 
students  of  local  history.  Mr.  Josiah  B.  Smith  tried  to  establish 
its  site,  by  doubtful  deductions  from  the  deed  itself,  at  the  "In- 
dian Field,"  just  east  of  W'rightstown.^  But  no  Indian  relics 
were  ever  found  there,  and  that  strange  place,  important  no  doiibt, 
is,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  the  site  of  an  Indian  cornfield,  not 
a  village. 

Further  documentary  evidence  on  this  subject  was  found  by 
the  writer,  in  1893,  in  a  manuscript  of  the  surveyor,  John  Watson, 
among  the  papers  of  the  late  Judge  Richard  Watson  of  Doyles- 
town,  in  which  the  surveyor,  writing  in  1756,  says,  that  "Play- 
wicky is  an  Indian  town  or  plantation  about  Philip  Drakets  be- 
low Heaton's  mill."  Following  this  the  writer  established  by 
deeds  the  site  of  Heaton's  mill  of  1756,  as  at  the  present  Rocks- 
ville,  but  failed  to  find  Draycot,  and  failed  to  find  any  trace  of  a 
large  Indian  village,  anywhere  along  Mill  creek  from  Rocksville 
to  the  Neshaminy.  After  this  inconclusive  hunt,  twenty  years 
followed,  in  which  no  one  else  examined  the  unsettled  question, 
until,  in  1920,  Albert  Cook  Myers  again  roused  interest  in  the 
matter,  by  finding  several  notes  in  William  Penn's  handwriting, 
stating  that  the  land  or  house  of  the  widow  of  his  friend,  Cuth- 
bert  Hayhurst,  in  1683,  is  "Near  the  Indian  town  Playwicky." 
Thereupon  Warren  S.  Ely  fixed  the  site  of  the  widow  Hayhurst's 
holding,  at  the  bend  of  Neshaminy  creek,  crossing  the  latter  west 
of  Langhorne,  at  the  mouth  of  Mill  creek,  and  then,  turning 
back  to  Watson's  statement,  established  the  holding  of  Philip 
Draycot,  in  1756,  as  a  tract  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide,  and 
a  mile  or  more  long,  east  and  west,  including  the  present  farm  of 

1  See  Vol.  I,  page  95,  of  our  printed  papers. 


THE   INDIAN   TOWN   OF   PLAYWICKV  501 

Arthur  C.  Emlen.  This  narrowed  down  the  field  of  search  so 
much  that  it  has  enabled  us  now,  better  than  ever  before  to  look 
for,  and  I  think  find,  the  site  of  Playwicky. 

Matthias  Hall,  with  remarkable  enthusiasm,  has  examined  the 
topography  of  this  neighborhood,  looked  at  all  the  springs,  dis- 
covered an  Indian  site  on  the  Cornell  farm,  referred  to  later,  and 
has  been  the  first  to  recognize  and  point  out,  the  remarkable  en- 
vironment of  Mr.  VanArtsdalen's  house,  as  the  site  of  Play- 
wicky. Together  with  the  facts  which  he  has  presented,  the 
writer  has  tried  to  weigh  and  examine  the  documentary,  tradition- 
al and  topographical  evidence  as  follows :  First  as  to  the  notes 
of  Penn  and  Watson.  The  site  of  Playwicky  is  about  at  the 
farm  of  Mr.  Arthur  C.  Emlen  and,  below,  or  south  of,  Rocks- 
ville,  according  to  Watson.  It  is  near  the  Trenton  cut  ofif  rail- 
road bridge,  crossing  the  Neshaminy  at  the  mouth  of  Mill  creek, 
according  to  Penn.  Hence  combining  both  statements,  we  infer 
that  it  was  not  to  the  north,  or  to  the  east,  of  this  bend  of  the 
Neshaminy,  but  somewhere  to  the  west  of  it,  somewhere  in  the 
region  between  Neshaminy  creek  on  the  east,  the  Emlen  farm  on 
the  west,  Mill  creek  on  the  north  and  an  east  and  west  line  from 
the  Neshaminy,  a  little  south  of  Siles,  on  the  south. 

In  considering  the  topography  of  this  region,  let  us  begin  by 
cutting  out  the  banks  of  Neshaminy  creek,  from  the  Falls  to 
Mill  creek,  because  the  lower  part  of  the  dark  gorge,  above  the 
Falls  dam,  is  too  narrow  for  foot  hold,  while  the  low  marginal 
flats  further  up,  as  far  as  Mill  creek,  are  continuely  freshet  swept, 
with  two  exceptions,  first  the  terrace  on  the  left  bank  under  and 
below  the  railroad,  which  is  not  so  much  "near"  the  site  of  Hay- 
hurst  but  rather  at  it,  and,  second,  the  terrace  around  the 
Neshaminy  bend  on  the  north  side  of  the  railroad  bridge  bluff, 
and  on  the  left  bank  of  the  stream,  which  is  too  cold  for  Indians. 
Moreover,  in  any  case,  John  Watson's  language  in  the  writer's 
opinion,  excludes  all  sites  on  Neshaminy  creek,  since  none  such 
could  have  been  reasonably  said  by  him  to  be  "about  Philip 
Draycot's"  (Mr.  Emlen's),  while  further,  if  Playwicky  had  been 
on  the  Neshaminy,  John  Watson,  the  surveyor,  would  surely  have 
said  so. 

Let  us  next  examine  the  banks  of  Mill  creek.  Here  with  one 
exception  along  the  whole  southeast  course  of  Mill  creek  from 


502  THE   INDIAN   TOWN   OF   PLAYWICKY 

Rocksville  to  the  Neshaminy  the  topography  is  against  Indian 
habitation,  notwithstanding  the  two  springs  on  the  Swarmer  and 
Tomhnson  farms  that  would  furnish  drinking  water.  These 
two  springs  near  the  hill  top,  nearly  a  mile  from  the  creek,  and 
the  lower  available  levels  for  possible  Indian  villages,  are  on 
the  right  bank,  that  is  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  stream.  They 
front  north.-  There  is  no  good  foothold  on  the  steep  south 
fronting  banks  opposite.  The  exception  is  the  meadow  at  the 
mouth  of  the  creek  on  its  left  side  on  the  Cornell  farm.  At  this 
point  the  northern  hills,  above  mentioned,  recede.  Pine  run 
flows  into  Mill  creek,  about  three  hundred  yards  above  its 
mouth,  enclosing  a  high  and  dry  relic  bearing  meadow.  I  missed 
this  in  1897,  but  Mr.  Hall  found  it  recently.  Though  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  distant  from  the  nearest  spring,  the  relics 
found  there,  show  that  it  has  been  dwelt  upon  by  Indians,  and 
judged  by  Penn's  language  alone,  it  might  be  Playwicky,  be- 
cause it  is  certainly  near  the  old  site  of  Cuthbert  Hayhurst's 
house,  just  across  the  Neshaminy  creek.  Nevertheless  this  site, 
in  the  writer's  opinion,  should  be  ruled  out  because,  though 
within  the  language  of  Penn,  it  does  not  fulfill  the  requirements 
of  John  Watson's  sentence.  It  is  not  reasonably  "about  Philip 
Draycot's"  (now  Mr.  Emlen's),  and  not  reasonably  "below" 
(i.  e.  south  of  in  surveyor's  language)  but  too  far  above,  i.  e.  to 
the  east,  and  a  little  to  the  north,  of  Heaton's  mill  (Rocksville). 
For  the  same  reason  the  whole  course  of  Mill  creek,  whatever  its 
topography,  notwithstanding  the  Swarmer  and  Tomlinson  springs, 
and  whether  the  writer's  hunt  in  1893  was  satisfactory  or  not, 
should  be  eliminated  from  the  present  search. 

2  At  the  farm  now  and  for  three  years  past,  worked  by  Clarence  Tomlin- 
son on  the  north  side  of  the  Bridgetown-Feasterville  road,  nearly  opposite 
the  Emlen  farm,  there  is  a  good  spring  which  does  not  go  drj^  Froin  this 
a  rivulet  flows  northward  down  the  hill  into  Mill  Creek  nearly  a  mile  away, 
many  surface  stones  have  been  gathered  on  the  place  but  Mr.  Tomlinson 
has  heard  of  no  Indian  relics. 

Valentine  Swarmer,  a  newcomer,  occupies  the  next  farm  along  the  same 
side  of  the  road  to  the  east  (formerly  the  Worthington  farm)  where  there 
is  also  a  spring.     The  north  hillside  frontage  at  both  places  is  similar. 

Information  of  Clarence  Tomlinson  to  H.  C.  Mercer,  by  telephone,  June 
12.    1923. 

The  writer  visited  both  the  above  sites  (Tomlinson  and  Swarmer),  on 
June  14,  1923.  Both  springs  are  on  the  north  side  of  the  same  hill  which 
shelters  the  VanArtsdalen  ampitheatre,  namely  the  long  ridge  which  here 
follows  Mill  Creek  nearly  a  mile  away.  No  doubt  Indians  may  have  camped 
near  both  these  springs.  No  doubt  relics  have  been  and  may  be  found 
around  them.  But  both  springs  are  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  hill.  Both 
are  very  insignificant  compared  with  the  Van  Artsdalen  springs  so  near 
them  on  the  south  side  of  the  same  hill.  Judged  by  all  tests  of  such  places 
known  to  the  writer  these  springs  and  the  north  fronting  hill  slopes  around 
them  should  in  his  opinion  be  thrown  out  of  consideration. 


THE   INDIAN   TOWN   OF   PLAYWICKY  503 

The  above,  if  correct,  narrows  down  our  examination  to 
some  one  of  the  several  springs,  necessary  for  an  Indian  village, 
that  rise  in  the  tract  in  question,  below  the  Bridgetown-Feaster- 
ville  road.  These  springs  form,  or  flow  into,  three  rivulets,  the 
only  three  that  drain  the  tract,  and  as  there  are  no  other  springs 
let  us  consider  these  rivulets  one  by  one. 

The  first  to  flow  into  the  Neshaminy  on  the  right  bank,  as  we 
come  north  from  the  Falls,  is  about  one  mile  long.  It  rises  about 
half-a-mile  south  of  Mr.  VanArtsdalen's  house,  on  the  farm  just 
sold  by  Thomas  Larue.  Here  access  to  the  Neshaminy  over  a  hill 
to  the  east,  or  down  the  steep  ravine  of  the  stream,  is  inconvenient. 
The  spring  rises  in  a  swamp  about  two  hundred  yards  in  di- 
ameter. No  doubt  the  south  fronting  hill  slopes  around  this 
swampy  source  might  have  been  inhabited  by  Indians  at  times. 
Mr.  Larue  reports  a  few  relics  found  in  the  ten-acre  field  across 
the  road  to  the  south.  But  the  whole  place  is  so  very  inferior  to 
the  VanArtsdalen  site,  to  be  described  later,  only  half  a  mile 
away,  that  in  the  writer's  opinion,  it  should  be  discarded,  and 
with  it  the  whole  lower  course  of  the  rivulet,  with  or  without 
possible  tributary  springs,  because  its  banks  are  too  steep. ^ 

Still  keeping  on  the  right  or  west  bank  of  the  Neshaminy, 
the  only  side  thereof  now  under  consideration,  a  second  rivulet, 
entering  the  Neshaminy  north  of  the  above,  and  flowing  down  a 
similar  ravine,  rises  in  two  springs,  about  a  hundred  yards  apart, 
on  the  adjoining  Albert  Paxson  and  Mather  farms,  and  half-a- 
Tnile  east  of  the  Larue  springs.  Here  the  conditions  are  better. 
We  have  two  springs  instead  of  one,  and  no  swamp.  The  same 
south-fronting  meadow  slopes,  close  by,  but  access  to  the 
Neshaminy,  over  the  same  eastern  hill,  or  down  a  similar  ravine, 
are  equally  inconvenient.  Mr.  Paxson  reports  an  absence  of 
relics,  during  the  thirty  or  more  years  of  his  residence.  His 
neighbor,  Mr.  Mather,  is  a  newcomer,  and  knows  nothing  of 
the   place.      But   this   negative    evidence    is    inconclusive,    owing 

3  The  present  house  on  the  Larue  farm  was  built  by  the  father  of  Thomas 
■Larue  about  1S40-1858.  "V^Tien  the  former  bought  the  farm  in  1832  a  log 
house  with  a  well  stood  at  the  site,  and  a  springhouse.  over  the  spring,  in 
the  swamp.  Another  log  house,  across  the  road,  built  by  the  father  of 
Thomas  Larue,  is  now  gone.  A  few  years  ago  twenty-five  arrow  heads  were 
found  by  an  Indian  boy  employed  by  Mr.  Thomas  Larue,  in  the  ten-acre 
field,  once  covered  with  cedar  trees,  on  the  rivulet  across  the  road  to  the 
south. 

Information  of  Thomas  Larue  of  Langhorne,  by  telephone,  to  H.  C.  Mercer, 
June    S,    1923. 


504  THE   INDIAN   TOWN   OF   PLAYWICKY 

to  the  fact  that  Paxson's  land,  around  the  spring,  has  been 
kept  as  an  uncultivated  pasture  meadow.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  here  again  Indians  must  have  occasionally  camped  at 
the  spring.  Still  this  place,  though  better  than  the  Larue  spring, 
from  the  Indian's  point  of  view,  is  so  very  inferior  to  the  Van- 
Artsdalen  spring,  hardly  one  mile  away,  not  yet  described,  that  it, 
and  the  whole  course  of  the  rivulet  below  it,  should  again,  in  the 
writer's  opinion,  be  thrown  out  of  consideration."* 

This  leaves  us  with  the  third  rivulet,  the  next  to  enter  the 
Neshaminy  on  the  right  bank  above  the  Paxson  stream,  as  we 
come  northward,  and  the  only  one  remaining  in  the  field  of  search. 
This  streamlet,  rising  in  two  or  more  insignificant  springs,  along 
the  Bridgetown  to  Feasterville  road,  and  augmented  by  two  other 
springs,  one  of  them  near  the  Emlen  house,  and  another  near  a 
ruined  house,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  below  it,  enters  a  very  remark- 
able amphitheatre,  surrounded  by  low  hills,  on  the  VanArtsdalen 
farm  and  passes  thence,  by  way  of  a  narrow  gorge,  about  half-a- 
mile  long  into  Neshaminy  creek ;  and  it  is  the  striking  topography 
and  history,  of  this  amphitheatre,  that  forces  us  to  believe,  that 
here,  and  here  alone,  with  reasonable  certainty,  we  have  at  last  dis- 
covered the  lost  site  of  Playwicky.  Discarding  the  above  men- 
tioned springs,  above  this  amphitheatre  and  the  narrow  bed  of 
the  rivulet  below  it,  the  amphitheatre  itself,  with  its  surrounding 
levels,  and  the  springs  that  flow  into  it,  fill  all  the  requirements 
of  an  Indian  town.  Here  we  find  a  flat  meadow,  nearly  a  mile 
long,  east  and  west,  by  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide,  at  its 
upper  western  end,  and  tapering  to  a  point,  at  its  eastern  end. 
Low  hills  surround  it  on  all  sides.  The  rivulet,  in  question,  enters 
it  on  the  wide  western  end,  crosses  it,  and  leaves  it,  at  the  nar- 
row eastern  end.  The  gentle  lower  hill  slopes,  on  its  north  side, 
give  the  requisite  southern  frontage  for  Indian  habitation  in 
winter.  While  some  of  the  steeper  north  fronting  slopes,  on  the 
south,  might  serve  for  cool  temporary  dwelling  in  summer.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  meadow  proper,  because,  as  we  learn,  some- 
times submerged  by  freshets,  is  too  wet  for  a  village-site.     Close 

4  Mr.  Thomas  Larue  says  that  he  heard  from  his  father  that  Indians  had 
lived  at  a  small  flat  place  about  fifty  yards  square,  on  the  right  of  this 
rivulet  rising-  at  the  Paxson  and  Mather  springs,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
south  of  the  road,  and  that  piles  of  stones,  still  existing,  had  been  placed  in 
the  woods  on  the  steep  left  bank  opposite,  by  Indians,  to  capture  deer  bv 
breaking  their  legs. 

Information  of  Thomas  Larue  of  Langhorne,  by  telephone,  to  H.  C.  Mercer, 
June   8,   1923. 


THE   INDIAN   TOWN   OF   PLAYWICKY  505 

around  this  meadow,  rise  three  springs,  two  on  its  north  side,  the 
first  at  the  VanArtsdalen  house,  the  second  just  below  it  to  the 
east,  both  good  springs,  both  rising,  not  in  the  meadow,  but  on  the 
dry  habitable  slopes  in  question.  The  third  spring,  far  larger 
and  finer,  perhaps  the  largest  in  southern  Bucks  county,  enters 
the  meadow  and  rivulet,  from  the  steep  hillside  on  the  south, 
just  as  the  rivulet  leaves  the  amphitheatre.  So  much  in  general 
for  the  topography  of  the  place.     Next  as  to  its  history : 

According  to  the  information  of  Mr.  VanArtsdalen,  his  family 
have,  in  the  last  eighty  years,  gathered  two  collections  of  Indian 
relics  near  the  amphitheatre.  The  first,  associated  with  minerals 
found  in  opening  the  limestone  quarry  at  the  large  lower  spring 
above  mentioned,  and  loaned  or  given  to  the  Academy  of  Natural 
Sciences  of  Philadelphia,  possibly  for  their  exhibit  at  the  Phila- 
delphia Centennial  in  1876,  and  seen  at  the  Academy  by  Mr. 
VanArtsdalen  about  1885.  No  record  of  which  relics  has  as  yet 
been  found  at  the  Academy.**  The  second,  a  later  accumulation, 
sold  by  Mr.  VanArtsdalen  to  Col.  H.  D.  Paxson  a  few  years  ago, 
and  here  shown.  Mr.  VanArtsdalen  tells  us  that  not  all  these 
relics  were  found  at  the  amphitheatre,  but  some  over  the  hill  top 
on  the  north,  or  upon,  or  beyond,  the  hill  slopes  to  the  south,  or 
possibly  elsewhere,  on  adjoining  farms.  But  this  foreign  ad- 
mixture, is  not  significant,  if  he  is  right,  as  we  think  he  is,  in 
saying  that  a  reasonable  number  of  them  were  found  close  to  the 
amphitheatre. 

Having  weighed  this  information,  let  us  examine  the  place  for 
ourselves.  Unfortunately  we  find  that  the  inhabitable  north 
margin  of  the  amphitheatre,  is  occupied  either  by  the  VanArts- 
dalen house  and  buildings,  or  covered  with  old  meadow  grass, 
showing  no  exposed  surface,  except  at  the  asparagus  field,  at  its 
extreme  lower  end,  opposite  the  great  spring.  Nevertheless,  if 
Playwicky  existed  at  the  amphitheatre,  the  site  of  this  asparagus 
field  could  not  have  escaped  Indian  habitation,  and  its  dry  level 

5  The  writer  visited  the  VanArtsdalen  Farm  on  June  14,  1923,  when  the 
mother  of  Mr.  Winder  VanArtsdalen  told  the  writer  very  positively  that  she 
had  frequently  heard  her  father-in-law,  Mr.  VanArtsdalen's  grandfather,  say 
that  he  had  loaned,  not  only  a  collection  of  minerals  but  also  therewith  a 
collection  of  Indian  relics  to  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  that  on  wishing  to  take  back  both  collections,  he  had  been  per- 
suaded to  give  them  both  to  the  Academy. 

Mr.  Winder  VanArtsdalen  then  told  the  writer,  that  as  a  boy  nine  years 
old,  he  had  been  taken  by  a  relative.  Miss  Sally,  about  1885,  to  the  Academy, 
and  had  there  been  shown  not  only  the  VanArtsdalen  minerals,  but  the  Van- 
Artsdalen Indian  relics,  placed  near  them,  in  the  showcases  of  the  Academy. 


506  THE   INDIAN   TOWN   OF   PLAYWICKY 

surface,  not  buried  in  talus  from  the  southern  hill  slopes  too  far 
away,  should  still  show  some  of  the  stone  remains  that  would 
prove  the  fact,  not  finished  axes,  arrow  heads,  polished  celts^ 
gorgets,  pestles,  etc.,  so  long  hunted  for  at  the  place,  but  the  no 
less  significant  rude  and  broken  stones,  that  no  amateur  collector 
collects.  Of  these  we  found,  about  fifteen  water  rolled  geologi- 
cally recent  pebbles,  some  broken,  probably  by  fire,  some  pitted 
by  hammering,  some  showing  scarcely  any  marks  of  use.  Not  in- 
digenous to  the  place,  all  must  have  been  brought  there  by  Indians, 
as  boiling  or  cooking  stones,  or  hammers.  Otherwise,  leaving  out 
of  consideration  the  few  chips  and  a  groved  stone  axe  recently 
found,  in  the  asparagus  field,  by  Mr.  VaUxA-rtsdalen,  the  surface, 
compared  with  the  average  Indian  sites  elsewhere  examined  by  the 
writer,  in  Bucks  county,  seemed  very  bare  indeed.  It  showed  noth- 
ing, except  two  large  fire-blackened  areas,  either  of  pioneer  or  In- 
dian origin,  and  therefore  inconclusive.  We  dug  three  trenches, 
upon  the  asparagus  field,  about  four  feet  long,  one  and  a  half 
feet  wide,  and  two  and  a  half  feet  deep.  These,  with  two 
smaller  circular  holes,  showed  a  superficial  band  of  blackened 
earth  about  fourteen  inches  deep,  evidently  discolored  by  fire, 
showing  rarely,  but  unmistabably,  minute  fragments  of  charcoal 
at  its  bottom,  below  plough  depth,  and  resting  on  the  clean  clay. 
In  one  of  these  trenches  Mr.  VanArtsdalen  found  a  broken  ar- 
row head  of  argilite,  and  Mr.  Mann  an  artificial  chip  of  white 
quartz.  I  myself  found  no  Indian  relics,  associated  with  this 
charcoal  in  any  of  these  holes,  and  therefore  prefer  to  argue 
nothing  from  our  excavations.  More  hunting  on  the  surface 
might  have  found  more  pebbles,  more  digging,  more  relics.  The 
asparagus  patch,  as  examined  by  us,  is  a  very  small  part  of  the 
inhabitable  area.  Nevertheless  it  is  very  significant,  because 
directly  upon  the  habitable  south  fronting  level,  and  hard  by  the 
best  of  all  the  springs.  When  all  is  considered,  allowing  for  the 
relics  previously  carried  away  from  the  place,  the  surface  pebbles 
found  there  by  us,  are,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  conclusive.  In  no 
way  less  so  than  such  relics  as  the  grooved  stone  axe,  the  fin- 
ished arrow  head,  the  blade  maker's  chip,  the  potsherd,  the  pol- 
ished celt,  or  the  pestle  and  mortar  itself.  Always  and  in- 
variably, at  all  such  places,  proof  positive  of  permanent  Indian 
habitation. 


THE   INDIAN   TOWN   OF   PLAYWICKY  507 

It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  find  the  site  of  a  very  large 
or  very  ancient  Indian  village  here,  a  place  where  the  surface 
relics  should  be  one-third  or  even  one-tenth  as  abundant,  as  at 
such  sites,  on  the  Delaware  river,  as  Lower  Blacks  Eddy,  or 
Gallows  Run.  The  fact  that  Playwicky  is  mentioned  in  the  deed 
of  1683,  and  by  Penn,  etc.,  only  means  that  it  happened  to  be  a 
noted  place  at  that  time.  It  might  well  be  that  the  town  was  not 
much  inhabited  by  the  Delawares,  until  after  the  Swedes  and 
Dutch  had  crowded  them  off  the  lower  river  banks  about  1640, 
and  that  between  1640  and  1690  it  rose  to  importance,  as  the 
final  retiring  place  for  the  Indians  before  their  departure,  and 
during  their  last  land  sales  in  the  lower  county. 

Finally  how  do  the  references  to  Playwicky,  by  Penn  as  "near 
Cuthbert  Hayhurst's  widow"  in  1683,  and  by  John  Watson,  as 
''about  Philip  Draycot's  below  Heaton's  mill"  in  1756,  apply  to 
this  place?  According  to  Mr.  Ely's  discoveries,  which  have  made 
this  research  possible,  Philip  Draycot's  tract,  in  1756,  adjoined 
the  west  end  of  this  amphitheatre,  and  is  now  represented,  as  be- 
fore- mentioned,  by  the  Emlen  farm.  Draycot's  house,  we  think, 
probably  stood  at  the  site  of  the  present  house  of  Mr.  Emlen  or 
another  ruined  house,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  further  this  way, 
on  the  rivulet  crossing  the  amphitheatre  in  question. '^ 

If  Watson's  phrase,  "about  Philip  Draycot's"  refers  to  Dray- 
cot's whole  tract,  then  this  VanArtsdalen  site,  is  as  well  covered  by 
his  words  as  the  Larue  or  Paxson  sites.  If  his  sentence  refers 
to  Draycot's  house,  then  this  remarkable  place  of  Mr.  Vanarts- 
dalen's,  is  about  half-a-mile  nearer  Philip  Draycot,  than  either 
Larue  or  Paxson.  On  the  other  hand,  Penn's  language  taken 
alone,  might  include,  but  would  not  exclude,  either  Paxson,  La- 
rue or  VanArtsdalen. 

To  sum  up  then,  the  topographical,  documentary  and  traditional 
evidence  shows,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  that  there  are  only  three 
possible  sites  for  Playwicky,  in  the  region  referred  to  in  the 
language  of  William  Penn  and  John  Watson,  namely,  this  Van- 

6  More  probably  than  any  possible  site  on  the  same  rivulet  above  Mr.  Em- 
len, because  the  springs  above  him  are  inferior  to  his,  or  than  anv  site,  now 
lost  away  from  springs,  on  the  tract,  since  such  a  site  would  have"  required  a 
well,  and  the  Draycots,  with  springs  on  their  tract  would  not  have  dug  a  well 
before  1756,  or  than  the  Larue  site,  if  the  latter  ever  should  be  found  to  be- 
long to  the  Draycot  tract,  because,  while  the  Emlen  site,  then,  as  now,  had 
its  road  (the  Brldgetown-Feasterville  Road),  there  was  no  road  at  the  Larue 
site  in  1756. 


508  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS 

Artsdalen  site  and  the  Paxson  and  Larue  sites,  and  that  the 
former  (this  amphitheatre  of  Mr.  VanArtsdalen's),  is  far  superior 
to  the  other  two.  That  Playwicky,  probably  not  a  very  large,  or 
very  ancient  Indian  town  (and  probably  abandoned  soon  after 
as  the  last  secluded  halting  place  of  the  Delawares  in  the  lower 
county  in  Penn's  time),  was  situated  here  and  nowhere  else. 


The  Old  Heath  Mill  and  Its  Early  Ov^^ners. 

BY   CAPTAIN   R.    C.    HOLCOMB,    (m.c),   U.    S.    N.,   PHILADELPHIA,   PA. 
(New  Hope   Meeting,   October   13,    1923.) 

ONE  of  the  earliest  recorded  deeds  of  Bucks  county  issued 
by  Penn  is  dated  March  21  and  22,  1681,  and  constitutes 
a  deed  of  lease  and  release  from  William  Penn  to  Thomas 
Woolrich  of  Shalford,  Staffordshire,  England,  yeoman,  and  is  for 
one  thousand  acres  of  land.  The  deed  is  signed  by  William 
Penn  and  is  witnessed  by  Harbt  Springett,  Tho.  Coxe  and  Ben 
Griffith.  The  land  comprised  in  this  one  thousand  acres  includes 
all  of  the  present  town  of  New  Hope.  Thomas  Woolrich  (Jr.) 
never  came  to  America,  but  seems  to  have  resided  in  Shalford 
(sometimes  spelled  Shawford),  Staffordshire  all  of  his  life.  He 
was  a  son  of  Thomas  Woolrich  of  the  same  place  and  married 
Sarah  Cossinet  of  Parshaw,  Worcester,  spinster,  9  mo. 
10,  1682.  Thomas  Woolrich,  Jr.,  had  several  sisters,  one  of 
whom,  Susanna  Woolrich,  married  Robert  Heath,  a  son  of 
Richard  of  Kinsley,  Staffordshire,  11  mo.  14,  1681.  at  the  Staf- 
fordshire Monthly  Meeting. 

Though  Thomas  W^oolrich  does  not  appear  to  have  come  to 
America,  many  of  his  relatives  and  descendants  came  over.  A 
sister,  Jane  Woolrich,  of  Shawford,  Staffordshire,  married  John 
Armitt  of  Nettle  Beds  in  Cheshire  at  Matthew  Babb's  house  in 
the  city  of  Chester,  5  mo.  19,  1668  (Staffordshire  Monthly  Meet- 
ing, also  Cheshire  Monthly  Meeting).  Richard  Armitt  was  a 
witness  to  Robert  Heath's  will  and  Richard  Heath,  a  son  of 
Robert    Heath,    in  his  will,    gives    his    wearing    apparel    to    his 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY    OWNERS  509 

cousin  Thomas  Armitt,  and  to  his  cousin  John  Stephen  Armitt 
he  gave  the  sum  of  ten  pounds. 

Another  sister  was  probably  Hannah  Wool  rich,  daughter  of 
Thomas  Woolrich  (the  elder)  of  Shawford,  Staffordshire,  who 
married  John  Whitakers  (yeoman),  of  Leekmoreside,  Stafford- 
shire, 8  mo.  28,  1680  (Staffordshire  Monthly  Meeting). 

Thomas  Woolrich,  as  previously  stated  married  Sarah  Cos- 
sinet  9  mo.  10,  1682,  and  the  births  of  seven  of  their  eight 
children  are  recorded  in  the  records  of  the  Staffordshire  Month- 
ly Meeting  as  follows : 

1.  Elizabeth,  born  at  Bassford,  9th  mo.  24  da.  1683.  It  is 
probable  that  this  is  the  Elizabeth  Woolrich  who  married  John 
Holcomb  at  Abington  Meeting,  Pa.,  2nd  mo.  28  da.  1707. 

2.  Cossinet,  born  1684,  9th  mo.  11th  day  at  Leeke.  He  died  in 
early  childhood  as  the  Staffordshire  Meeting  notes  Cossinet,  son 
of  Thomas  and  Sarah,  buried  6th  mo.  1st  day  1687. 

3.  Josiah,  born  1686,  6th  mo.  17th  day  at  Leeke.  Josiah  also 
died  young  and  was  buried  at  Bassford  19th  day  5th  mo.  1687. 

4.  Rebecca,  born  1687,  9th  mo.  27th  day.  She  died  young  and 
her  name  was  given  to  the  twin  sister  of  Mary. 

5.  Rebecca,  born  1692,  7th  mo.  3rd  day.  She  died  aged  17 
years,  and  was  buried  at  Shawford  1709,  12th  mo.  6th  day. 

6.  Mary,  born  1692,  7th  mo.  3rd  day.  She  was  probably  the 
Mary  Woolrich  who  married  Jacob  Holcomb  at  Falls  Monthly 
Meeting,  Pa.,  in  1712.  Jacob  Holcomb  purchased  500  acres  of 
the  Thomas  Woolrich.  1000  acres  from  the  heirs  of  Richard 
Heath  the  same  year,  1712.  A  brother  of  Jacob  Holcomb,  John 
Holcomb,  who  had  married  Elizabeth  Woolrich  at  Abington 
Meeting  resided  directly  across  the  river  in  West  New  Jersey. 
Some  of  John's  land  in  his  possession  at  the  time  of  his  death  he 
had  bought  of  Richard  Armitt. 

7.  John,  born  1695,  5th  mo.  22nd  day.  (Staffordshire  Month- 
ly Meeting),  married,  at  Newton,  Elizabeth  Wallsworth,  of  Nar- 
ley,  Cheshire,  3rd  mo.  3rd  day,  1722  (Cheshire  Monthly  Meeting). 

8.  Samuel,  born ,  son  of  Thomas  of  Shawford  in  Staf- 
fordshire, married  1724.  2nd  mo.  10th  day,  Elizabeth  Towers, 
spinster.  She  was  a  daughter  of  Samuel  Towers  of  Over  Whit- 
ley, Cheshire. 

Sarah,  the  wife  of  Thomas  Woolrich,  the  mother  of  the  above 


510  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS 

children,  died  1706,  4th  mo.  and  was  buried  at  Shawford  (Staf- 
fordshire Monthly  Meeting).  Thomas  \\'oolrich,  Sr.,  of  Shaw- 
ford, parish  of  Cheshire,  married  Elizabeth  Smyth  at  Stafford 
1720  2nd  mo.  17th  day   (Staffordshire  Monthly  Meeting). 

The  deed  of  Thomas  Woolrich  indicates  that  he  purchased  his 
land  while  still  a  young  man,  and  before  his  marriage.  The 
grant  of  the  one  thousand  acres  located  later  in  Bucks  county. 
Pa.,  states  that  he  sold  his  land  to  his  brother-in-law,  Robert 
Heath,  of  Lower  Teane,  in  the  Parish  of  Checkley  April  9  and 
10,  1700.  (Patent  Book  A,  No.  4,  p.  242.)  Several  of  the  sisters 
of  Robert  Heath  (who  married  Susanna  Woolrich,  the  sister  of 
Thomas  Woolrich),  had  emigrated  to  Pennsylvania,  and  settled 
along  the  Delaware  river  in  Bucks  county.  A  sister,  Ann  Heath, 
of  Harton  in  Staffordshire,  married  James  Harrison  of  Kendal, 
Westmoreland,  5  mo.  1,  1655  (Cheshire  Monthly  Meeting).  He 
removed  with  his  family  to  Pennsylvania  1682  and  died  8  mo. 
6,  1687.  Another  sister,  Margaret  Heath,  of  Harton,  Stafford- 
shire, married  Thomas  Janney  at  Jane  Harrison's,  Pownal  fel 
9  mo.  24  da.  1660  (Cheshire  Monthly  Meeting).  Thomas  Janney 
came  to  Pennsylvania  in  1683  and  settled  in  Bucks  county,  where 
he  died  a  prominent  minister  of  Falls  Monthly  Meeting,  Another 
sister,  Jane  Heath,  married  William  Yardley  at  Staffordshire 
Monthly  Meeting,  x:  30:  1663.  William  Yardley  with  his  fami- 
ly came  to  Pennsylvania  in  1682.  He  died  in  1693,  and  was  a 
minister  of  Falls  Monthly  Meeting.  A  testimony  to  all  these 
brothers-in-law  to  Robert  Heath  is  contained  in  the  "Collection 
of  Memorials,  Concerning  Divers  Deceased  Ministers  of  the  Peo- 
ple Called  Quakers." 

Robert  Heath,  who  married  Susanna  Woolrich,  became  inter- 
ested in  Penn's'  scheme  to  settle  Pennsylvania,  and  early  in  the 
year  of  1700  he  began  to  make  his  preparations  to  go  to  America. 
At  just  what  date  Robert  Heath  and  his  family  left  England  has 
not  yet  come  to  light,  but  a  certificate  of  removal  was  granted 
William  and  Rosamond  Till  from  the  Staffordshire  Monthly 
Meeting,  dated  March  11,  1700,  for  their  going  "in  care  of  our 
friends  Robert  Heath  and  his  wife  who  came  along  ye  same  voy- 
age." Later,  a  certificate  was  issued  to  Joseph  Parker,  a  young 
lad  aged  fourteen  years,  which  had  been  requested  for  him  by 
his  mother,  Elizabeth  Parker   (widow),  of  Bartholomew  Close, 


THE    OLD    HEATH    MILL    AND   ITS    EARLY   OWNERS  511 

London.  He  going  "over  to  an  uncle  of  his  (viz)  Robert  Heath 
in  Pennsylvania,"  this  certificate  being  granted  from  the  Monthly 
Meeting  at  Peel,  London,  dated  12  mo.  25th  1701.  Ehzabeth 
Woolrich  of  Bartholomew  Close,  London,  spinster,  married  Wil- 
liam Parker  at  Bull  and  Mouth  1674,  2  mo.  2  da.  (Quarterly 
Meeting  of  London  and  Middlesex).  Robert  Heath  therefore, 
seems  to  have  set  out  some  time  in  1700  and  he  was  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  Susanna  Woolrich  Heath  and  five  children,  namely, 
Ann,  Richard,  Elizabeth,  Hannah,  Mary  and  Susanna.  Shortly 
before  leaving  England,  he  purchased  from  his  brother-in-law, 
Thomas  Woolrich,  by  deed  dated  9th  and  10th  day  of  April,  1700, 
his  town  lots  in  Philadelphia,  located  on  High  St.  (now  Market 
St.)  and  the  one  thousand  acres  of  land.  He  obtained  a  warrant 
to  lay  out  his  one  thousand  acres  of  land  in  Bucks  county,  the 
warrant  bearing  date  14th  day  of  the  11th  mo.,  1700.  He  also 
had  purchased  a  tract  of  five  hundred  acres  of  land,  which  he  lo- 
cated in  old  Bristol  township,  now  a  part  of  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia, and  the  warrant  to  lay  out  this  tract  bears  the  same  date 
as  the  warrant  for  the  one  thousand  acre  tract.  On  this  latter 
tract  of  five  hundred  acres  not  far  from  Tacony  creek,  he  settled 
his  homestead  plantation. 

The  one  thousand  acres  of  land  was  up  the  river  just  beyond 
Penn's  Manor  of  the  Highlands,  beyond  what  is  now  known  as 
Buckingham  and  Solebury  Mountain,  the  former  called  by  the 
Indians  Popacating,  who  had  a  town  between  it  and  Beale  Hill. 
.Francis  Rossell  in  his  will  dated  8  mo.  5th,  1694,  refers  to  this 
Indian  town  therein.  At  about  the  time  the  warrant  was  made, 
William  Penn  and  Robert  Heath  made  an  agreement  that  the  lat- 
ter was  to  build  within  one  year,  and  afterwards  keep  in  repair 
a  good  water  corn-mill  for  the  use  and  service  of  the  neighbor- 
hood. In  consideration  whereof,  William  Penn  stipulated  that  so 
long  as  Robert  Heath,  his  heirs  or  assigns  should  maintain  a 
sufficient  gristmill  for  the  use  aforesaid  there  should  not  be  any 
gristmill  built  between  the  great  spring  head  and  the  one  thousand 
acres ;  and  that  the  waters  from  the  great  spring  should  not  be 
turned  aside  or  stopped  in  such  manner  that  Robert  Heath  would 
be  hindered  of  the  full  and  free  use  of  its  water.  The  great 
spring  is  a  wonderful  gush  of  water  out  of  a  hole,  flowing  im- 
mediately  into   a   large   natural    lake    or   reservoir    from    which 


512  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY    OWNERS 

the  mill  stream  flows. ^  The  mill  built  by  Robert  Heath  sometime 
about  1702  was  called  by  him  the  Tean-Mill  (after  the  English 
town  in  which  he  lived),  but  is  locally  known,  and  has  long  been 
known  as  the  Heath  Mill.  The  Heath  gristmill,  which  is  still 
standing,  is  located  in  practically  the  center  of  the  Woolrich  tract. 
A  short  distance  outside  of  New  Hope  at  the  bottom  of  a  slight 
grade  where  the  Suggan-  road  crosses  the  Old  York  road.  Turn- 
ing south  into  the  Suggan  road,  it  is  but  a  short  distance  to 
the  mill  stream  where  the  mill  is  located  to  the  right  of  the  road. 
Immediately  below  it  is  the  four-story  grist  mill  built  by  William 
Maris,  and  above  on  the  mill  stream  is  the  house  known  as 
Springdale,  the  Huffnagle  home,  the  original  part  of  which  was 
built  by  William  Maris,  who  came  to  New  Hope  about  1812^. 

Robert  Heath  does  not  appear  to  have  ever  lived  on  the  one 
thousand  acres,  but  he  (and  his  children  until  their  respective 
marriages),  continued  to  live  on  a  part  of  his  five  hundred  acre 
plantation  in  Bristol  township,  until  the  time  of  his  death,  in  the 
summer  of  1710.  His  children  were,  Susanna,  born  8  mo.  12th 
1682  at  "Goldhurst"  Teane,  Staffordshire,  married  Morris  Mor- 
ris, 7  mo.  27,  1703,  and  died  4  mo.  28,  1755.  Ann,  born  7  mo.  29th 
1684  m.  Richard  Walln.  Richard,  born  6  mo.  11th  1686,  died  the 
fall  of  1711,  unmarried.  Elizabeth,  born  6  mo.  5th  1688,  at  Bass- 
ford,  married  Thomas  Livezey,  9  mo.  27th  1710.  Hannah,  born 
5  mo.  5th  1690,  married  three  times:  1st,  to  Richard  \\''orrell  at 
Oxford  Meeting,  9  mo.  1st  1711 ;  2nd,  to  Richard  Sermon  in  1725 ; 
and  3rd,  to  Samuel  Hurford,  son  of  John  and  Sarah  Hurford  at 
Abington  Meeting,  2  mo.  26th,  1731.  She  died  1763.  Mary,  born 
1693,  married  1  mo.  25,  1717,  George  Emlen.  She  died  6  mo.  1st, 
1777. 

The  will  of  Robert  Heath  was  dated  twentieth  day  of  eleventh 
month,  called  January,  Anno  Dom.  1708-09,  and  witnessed  by 
William  Preston,  John  Welch,  Richd.  Armitt  and  Ishmael  Ben- 
net.  In  it  he  calls  himself  "Robert  Heath  of  County  of  Phila- 
delphia in  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania,  yeoman."  To  his  wife, 
Susanna  Heath,  he  gives  the  sum  of  fifty-four  ounces  and  one 
pennyweight  of  Servill  silver  or  Mexican  pieces  and  other  per- 

1  For  etching  of  this  spring,  see  Vol.   Ill,  p.   564. 

2  So  named  from  a  crude  carrier  placed  upon  a  horse's  back  to  facilitate  the 
carrying  of  bags  of  grain  to  mill.  The  road  extending  from  the  Tean  Mill 
to  Elllcott's  Mill  at  what  is  now  Carversville. 

3  For  history  Of  Huffnagle  house,  see  Vol.  IV,  pp.   643  to  661. 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS  513 

sonal  property.  To  his  daughters,  Susanna  Morris  and  Ann 
Walhi,  he  gave  two  hundred  acres  of  his  five  hundred  acre  plan- 
tation in  Bristol  township,  near  Tacony  creek.  (This  Bristol 
township  was  one  of  the  old  tow^iships  like  Oxford  and  Frank- 
ford,  now  incorporated  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia.  It  was  lo- 
cated to  the  westward  of  Oxford  and  to  the  northward  of  Frank- 
ford.)  He  directed  that  the  remaining  three  hundred  acres 
"my  messuage  or  Tenem't.  and  plantation  with  ye  appurtenances 
whereon  I  now  dwell  situate  in  Bristol  township,"  be  sold  by  his 
son  Richard  and  his  sons-in-law,  Morris  Morris  and  Richard 
Walln,  and  that  the  money  so  raised  be  equally  divided  amongst 
his  daughters,  Elizabeth,  Hannah,  and  Mary.  To  his  son, 
Richard  Heath,  he  gave  the  one  thousand  acre  tract  located  in 
Solebury  in  the  following  words : 

"Also,  I  give,  devise  and  bequeath  unto  my  son,  Richard  Heath,  all 
my  Water  Corn  Mills  or  Grist  Mills,  called  Tean-Mills,  situate,  lying 
and  being  in  ye  township  of  Solebury  in  the  County  of  Bucks,  in  the 
said  Province,  and  also  all  that  my  one  thousand  acres  of  land  there 
unto  belonging,  whereon  my  said  mill  stands,  with  all  the  houses,  out- 
houses, buildings,  Bolting-Mills  and  other  improvements  and  appur- 
tenances to  ye  said  Mill  and  land  belonging.  And  also  my  Front  and 
High  St.  lots  in  ye  city  of  Philadelphia  and  also  the  residue  of  my 
estate  both  real  and  personal  what-so-ever  both  in  Great  Brittain  and 
in  this  Province  or  elsewhere  to  hold  to  my  son  Richard  Heath,  to 
his  heirs,  exrs.,  and  assigns  forever." 

This  will  was  recorded  August  3,  1710  (Phila.  Wills  No.  173, 
Book  C,  p.  215). 

A  warrant  to  lay  out  this  land  in  Bucks  county  was  granted 
to  Robert  Heath,  the  14th  day  of  11th  mo.  (February)  in  the 
year  1700.     (H.  Pat.  Book  A  No.  4,  pp.  242,  243.) 

"And  whereas  the  said  Robt.  Heath  some  time  since  the  date  of  the 
warrant  aforesaid  promised  and  agreed  with  me  (William  Penn)  that 
he  the  said  Robert  Heath  should  within  one  year  next  after  his  said 
agreement  build  and  afterwards  keep  in  repair  a  Good  Water  Corn 
Mill  for  the  use  and  service  of  the  neighborhood.  In  consideration 
whereof,  I  granted  unto  the  said  Robert  Heath,  his  heirs  and  assigns 
forever  that  so  long  as  he,  the  said  Robert  Heath,  his  heirs  and  assigns 
should  maintain  a  sufficient  Grist  Mill  for  the  use  aforesaid  there  should 
not  be  any  Grist  Mill  built  by  me,  my  heirs  or  assigns  between  the 
Great  Spring  head  running  through  the  said  one  thousand  acres  of 
land  or  some  part  thereof  and  the  said  one  thousand  acres  and,  that 
the  water  or  stream  of  Great  Spring  aforesaid  should  not  at  any  time 


514  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS 

be  stopped  or  turned  aside  so  far  as  that  the  said  Robert  Heath  at  any 
time  should  be  hindered  of  the  full  and  free  use  of  the  same.  But  that 
the  said  Robert  Heath,  his  heirs  and  assigns  should  have  and  enjoy  the 
same  so  long  as  he  or  they  should  maintain  a  mill  as  aforesaid  with- 
out any  molestation  whatsoever,  and  whereas  the  said  Robert  Heath 
being  seized  of  the  said  land  and  premises,  erected  a  Water  Corn  Mill 
thereon  and  in  and  by  his  last  will  and  testament  bearing  date  the  two 
and  twentieth  day  of  the  eleventh  month  in  the  year  of  Our  Lord  one 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  nine,  devised  the  said  land  and  mill  and 
premises  with  the  improvements  thereon  to  Richd.  Heath,  son  and  heir 
apparent  of  the  said  Robert  Heath,  his  heirs  and  assigns  and  sometime 
after  dyed  seized  of  the  said  land  and  premises  as  in  and  by  said  will 
may  appear  and  the  said  Richard  Heath  requesting  me  to  confirm  to 
him  the  said  land  and  premises  by  patent.  Now  know  ye  that  as  well 
for  and  in  consideration  of  the  sum  of  money  in  my  said  first  recited 
Indentures  of  Release  mentioned,  as  of  the  same  Quit  rent  thereon  and 
herein  also  reserved  I  have  given,  granted,  Released,  and  confirmed  and 
by  these  presents  for  me,  my  heirs  and  successors  do  grant  and  release 
and  confirm  unto  the  said  Richard  Heath,  his  heirs  and  assigns  forever 
and  the  said  several  Tracts  or  parcels  of  land  situate  Lying  being  con- 
tiguous as  aforesaid,"  etc.  Recorded  30th  July  1711.  (Patent  Book  A 
No.  4,  p.  243.) 

Richard  Heath  survived  his  father  but  a  short  time,  as  he  died 
during  the  fall  of  the  following  year  (1711).  But  in  the  inter- 
val between  the  death  of  his  father  and  his  own  death,  he  under- 
took to  secure  patents  for  the  land  left  to  him  by  his  father.  A 
warrant  for  survey  of  the  city  lots  had  been  applied  for  by  his 
father.  The  High  street  lot  being  part  of  a  lot  formerly  laid  out 
for  Letitia  Penn.  (Penn.  Mss.  warrants  and  surveys  large  folio 
25),  and  was  in  the  right  of  the  purchase  made  by  Thomas  Wool- 
rich,  March  21  and  22,  1681.  (A  No.  2,  p.  727,  Harrisburg,  Pa. 
Books).  The  patent  for  the  land  in  Bucks  County  was  not  is- 
sued during  Robert  Heath's  life  time,  though  a  warrant  to  lay  out 
the  land  was  issued  to  him  14th  day  of  11  mo.  in  year  1700.  The 
patent  was  prepared  in  favor  of  Richard  Heath  and  was  recorded 
July  30,  1711.  (Patent  Book  A,  No.  4,  p.  242.)  In  this  patent 
is  recited  a  full  history  of  the  land,  from  its  purchase  by  Thomas 
Woolrich,  the  agreement  to  build  the  mill  by  Robert  Heath,  and 
other  facts  of  interest. 

The  will  of  Richard  Heath  is  recorded  Volume  C,  264,  Phila- 
delphia county,  as  follows : 

I,  Richard  Heath  of  Philadelphia  being  sick  and  weak  in  body  do 
make  this  my  last  will  and   testament   in   manner  and  form   following. 


THE    OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS  515 

and  first  I  give  to  my  sister,  Mary  Heath,  the  sum  of  fifty  pounds.  I 
give  to  my  cousin,  Anne  Phipps,  the  sum  of  ten  pounds.  I  give  my 
silver  spurs  to  Joseph  Parker.  I  give  my  wearing  apparel  to  my 
cousin,  Thomas  Armitt.  I  give  my  cousin,  John  Stephen  Armitt,  the 
sum  of  ten  pounds,  and  all  the  remainder  of  my  estate,  real  and  personal, 
to  my  five  sisters,  namely  Susanna  Morris,  Anne  Walln,  Elizabeth 
Liversey,  Hannah  Heath  and  ]\Iary  Heath.  I  give  to  my  cousin,  John 
Armitt,  the  sum  of  ten  pounds,  and  I  do  make  my  two  brothers, 
Richard  Walln,  Junior,  and  Morris  Morris  executors  of  this  my  last 
will  and  testament  in  witness  whereof  I  have  put  my  hand  and  seal  this 
eleventh  day  of  the  eight  month  1711. 

RICHARD    HEATH. 

Witnesses  Samuel  Carpenter  and  Wm.  Robins. 

Philadelphia,  Oct.  11,  1711.  Witnesses  appeared  before  Charles  Goo- 
kin  and  made  affirmation  as  witnesses." 

By  whom  the  mill  was  operated  from  the  time  it  was  built, 
about  the  year  of  1702,  until  the  death  of  Richard  Heath,  no 
clear  record  remains.  A  number  of  the  relatives,  friends  and 
neighbors  of  Richard  Heath  residing  in  or  about  the  townships  of 
Lower  Dublin,  Oxford  and  Abington  later  settled  there,  and  it  is 
not  impossible  that  some  one  of  them  acted  as  his  agent.  Jacob 
Holcomb  was  the  next  owner  of  the  mill,  purchasing  it  from  the 
heirs  of  Richard  Heath,  his  deed  being  dated  the  4th  mo.  12,  1712. 

Jacob  Holcomb  was  a  son  of  John  and  Sarah  Holcomb  of  Dul- 
vertown,  Somersetshire.  The  quarterly  meeting  of  Bristol  and 
Somerset  (English  Meeting  Records)  records  the  marriage  of 
John  Holcomb  of  Stogumber  and  Sarah  Scott  9  mo.  11th  1675 
at  Western  and  Middle  Division  Monthly  Meeting.  The  children 
of  John  and  Sarah  Holcomb  of  the  Withill  and  Dilverton  Meet- 
ing, Western  Division  are  recorded  as  follows : 

Julian  Holcomb  born  8  mo.  3  1676. 

Julian  Holcomb  born  5  mo.  4  1678. 

John  Holcomb  born  5  mo.  29  1680. 

John  Holcomb  born  3  mo.  20  1682. 

Jacob  Holcomb  born  7  mo.  3  1684. 

A  memorial  of  Jacob  Holcomb  prepared  about  ten  years  after 
his  death  by  a  committee  duly  appointed  by  Buckingham  Meeting 
to  collect  memoirs  of  deceased  ministers  and  elders,  mentioned 
the  place  of  his  birth  and  the  fact  of  his  father's  early  death  as 
follows : 

"He     was     born  at     or     near     Tiverton     in     Old     England,     being 


516  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS 

a  descendant  of  friends;  his  father  died  while  he  was  young  and  his 
mother  brought  him  up  to  useful  learning."  etc.  (Collection  of  Memo- 
rials of  Deceased  Ministers,  published  1787.) 

The  statement  that  Jacob  Holcombe  was  born  in  Tiverton  is 
probably  an  error,  as  the  family  in  England  to  which  he  belonged 
had  been,  for  several  generations  preceding  his  birth,  seated  at 
Dulverton  Parish.  His  father,  John  Holcombe  died  in  1685,  the 
year  following  his  birth,  his  father's  will  having  been  proved  at 
Taunton  1685.  By  his  will  dated  the  20th  day  of  April  1685, 
John  Holcombe  of  the  parish  of  Dulverton,  Somerset,  yeoman, 
gave  to  Sarah  his  wife  all  the  goods  which  were  hers  before 
marriage :  To  his  son  John  his  clock  and  silver  cup.  To  his  son 
Jacob  his  watch,  to  his  daughter  Julian,  silver  spoons :  To  his 
servant  Joan  Rooke  five  pounds :  to  the  rest  of  his  servants  one 
shilling  apiece.  Should  testator's  land  in  the  parish  of  Dulver- 
ton fall  into  possession  then  he  gave  the  same  to  his  son  Jacob. 
He  gave  his  son  John  all  his  land  and  tenements  in  Dulverton. 
The  rest  of  his  estate  he  gave  to  his  wife  Sarah,  his  sons  John 
and  Jacob  and  his  daughter  JuHan  and  appointed  them  his  joint 
executors.  The  document  was  signed  and  sealed  by  John  Hol- 
combe in  the  presence  of  John  Atkins,  Richard  Coyle  and  R. 
Sedgborrow. 

Jacob  Holcombe  was  probably  the  nephew  of  Sarah  Holme, 
the  daughter  of  Penn's  Surveyor  General  Thomas  Holme. 
Thomas  Holme's  daughter,  Sarah,  was  married  at  Lambstown, 
County  Wexford,  Ireland,  7  mo.  12,  1672,  to  Richard  Holcomb, 
son  of  Richard  and  Juliann  Holcomb  of  Parish  of  Dulverton, 
Somersetshire.  (Transcript  by  Mr.  Albert  Gook  Myers.) 
Thomas  Holme  by  his  will  dated  12  mo.  10,  1694,  bequeathed 
thirty  pounds  to  be  paid  "the  children  of  Richard  Holcomb  by 
my  daughter  Sarah"  the  same  to  be  paid  out  of  certain  lands  in 
Pennsylvania  in  the  vicinity  of  Abington,  Pa.  (Phila.  Go.  Wills 
Liber.  A.  308.)  The  records  of  Withill  and  Dulverton  Meeting, 
\\'estern  Division  (English  Records)  record  the  birth  of  two 
children  of  Richard  and  Sarah  Holcombe,  namely,  Susanna  Hol- 
comb, born  4  mo.  25th  1673,  and  Richard  Holcomb  5  mo.  5th 
1675,  the  first  child  being  born  a  little  over  ten  months  after  the 
marriage  in  Ireland. 

xA.fter  the  death  of  Jacob's  father,  John  Holcomb,  his  mother 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL    AND   ITS    EARLY    OWNERS  517 

Sarah,  married  John  Hurford.  John  Hurford  came  to  Pennsyl- 
vania in  1700  from  Tiverton  and  brought  with  him  a  certificate 
from  Friends  of  CuUumpton  Meeting  dated  2  mo.  29,  1700,  for 
himself  and  family,  including  his  son  John  and  his  wife's  daugh- 
ter, July  Ann  Holcomb.  Just  what  date  Jacob  Holcomb  arrived 
in  Pennsylvania  is  not  certain.  Watson  in  his  memoirs  mentions 
him  as  having  settled  in  Buckingham  before  1703.  (Penna.  His- 
torical Society  Memoirs,  Vol.  I,  p.  294.) 

Davis  in  his  "History  of  Bucks  County"  (Vol.  I,  p.  244),  men- 
tions his  name  as  one  of  the  settlers  who  probably  located  land  in 
Solebury  between  1687  and  1702.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  he  was  in  Solebury  during  the  earliest  days  of  its  settlement, 
though  the  Hurfords  continued  to  reside  somewhere  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Abington.  From  the  meeting  at  Abington,  Pa.,  the  follow- 
ing minute  is  extracted  under  date:  "26th  3  mo.  1707.  At  this 
meeting  a  certificate  was  granted  to  Jacob  Holcomb  in  order  for 
his  passage  to  England,  he  having  produced  a  paper  of  recom- 
mendation from  Buckingham."  He  was  now  a  young  man  nearly 
twenty-three  years  of  age. 

Upon  his  return  from  England,  Jacob  Holcomb  again  went  to 
Solebury,  where,  on  March  25,  1709,  he  purchased  from  James 
Logan  of  Philadelphia  two  tracts  of  land,  one  containing  three 
hundred  and  twenty  acres  and  the  other  five  hundred  acres.  This 
is  the  tract  of  land  often  called  the  Scarborough  tract,  as  Jacob 
Holcomb  sold  this  land  to  John  Scarborough  two  days  later,  and 
bought  of  John  Scarborough  for  the  same  price  he  sold  to  Scar- 
borough, namely  for  three  hundred  pounds  silver  money,  the 
tract  of  land  west  of  the  Great  Spring  tract.  In  the  deed  from 
James  Logan,  he  is  called  "carpenter"  and  in  the  deeds  with 
Scarborough  he  is  called  "yeoman."  It  would  appear  that  he 
purchased  the  two  tracts  from  Logan  in  order  to  make  exchange 
with  John  Scarborough.  At  the  same  time,  he  sold  back  to  John 
Scarborough  sixty  acres  of  the  five  hundred  and  ten  acre  tract 
for  fifty  pounds.  The  witnesses  of  the  transaction  between  Scar- 
borough and  Holcombe  were  in  each  case  Nathanial  Bye,  Enoch 
Pearson  and  John  Reading.  The  two  former  were  residents  of 
Solebury,  but  the  latter  was  a  resident  of  Amwell,  West  Jersey, 
a  neighbor  of  John  Holcomb  and  one  of  the  promotors  of  the  Old 
York  road.     The  deed  from  James  Logan  to  Jacob  Holcomb  for 


518  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY    OWNERS 

eight  hundred  and  thirty  acres  is  recorded  in  Book  4,  p.  56,  Bucks 
county,  Pa.,  Records.  The  deed  from  Jacob  Holcomb  to  John 
Scarborough  is  recorded  in  the  same  volume  pages  133  and  136. 
The  deed  from  John  Scarborough  to  Jacob  Holcombe  is  in  the 
same  volume  page  129.  About  that  time  a  petition  was  made  by 
the  inhabitants  of  Solebury  for  a  road  from  Philadelphia  to  be 
known  as  the  York  road ,  Jacob  Holcomb  being  one  of  the 
petitioners. 

First  mo.  1712,  Jacob  Holcomb  and  Mary  Woolridge,  or  Wool- 
rich  declared  intentions  of  marriage  at  Falls  Meeting.  The  2  mo. 
1712,  their  second  declaration  was  made,  and  permission  granted 
for  them  to  consummate  their  intention,  but  the  date  of  the  mar- 
riage is  not  of  record.  The  4th  mo.  12th,  1712,  Jacob  Holcomb 
purchased  five  hundred  acres  of  the  Woolrich  or  Heath  tract, 
upon  which  the  Tean  Mill  or  Heath  Mill  is  located.  He  operated 
the  mill  and  when  the  adjoining  five  hundred  acres  of  the  original 
Woolrich  one  thousand  acres  was  sold  in  the  year  of  1716,  he  is 
referred  to  by  occupation  as  a  miller.  Thus  in  the  deed  to  Charles 
Brockden  of  Philadelphia  for  the  Ferry  tract,  (recorded  in  Book 
E-7,  Vol.  IX,  p.  374,  Phila.  Co.),  the  purchase  of  the  mill  tract 
is  referred  to  in  the  following  manner:    : 

"And  whereas  about  five  hundred  acres  part  thereof  was  since 
conveyed  by  them  the  said  Maurice  Morris  and  Susannah,  his 
wife,  Richard  Walln  and  Ann,  his  wife,  Thomas  Liversy  and 
Elizabeth,  his  wife,  and  Mary  Heath  unto  Jacob  Holcomb  of 
said  Bucks  Co.,  miller."  He  likewise  is  called  "miller"  in  the 
lease  of  the  mill  to  Thomas  Canby  1717.  This  deed  is  dated  May 
23,  1716,  and  throughout  the  deed  wherever  he  is  referred  to  he 
is  called  by  occupation  a  miller.  He  held  the  mill  about  four 
years,  when  he  sold  it.  To  Thomas  Canby,  a  resident  of  Abington, 
he  sold  two-thirds  of  this  tract,  the  remaining  third  being  equally 
divided  between  Morris  Morris  and  Richard  Walln,  the  brothers- 
in-law  of  Richard  Heath.  This  sale  being  made  Dec.  3,  1717. 
There  are  several  unrecorded  deeds  for  this  property  between 
1709  and  1717,  but  the  sale  does  not  seem  to  have  been  completed, 
and  the  property  reverted  to  Jacob  Holcomb.  One  of  these  deeds 
dated  Feb.  21  and  22,  1714,  conveying  the  land  to  Enoch  Pearson, 
is  witnessed  by  John  Woolrich,  Richard  Taylor  and  John  Reading. 
About  this  same  time,  Dec.  3,   1717,  he  sold  to  Thomas  Canby 


THE   OLD    HEATH    AIILL   AND   ITS   EARLY    OWNERS  519 

four  hundred  and  forty-four  acres  of  the  tract  purchased  from 
John  Scarborough,  and  he  then  removed  to  land  in  Buckingham, 
formerly  belonging  to  William  Cooper,  being  a  five  hundred  acre 
tract  that  Cooper  had  purchased  from  Margaret  Atkinson,  the 
widow  of  Christopher  Atkinson.  William  Cooper  had  emigrated 
to  Pennsylvania  and  with  his  wife,  Thomasina,  had  lived  in  a 
stone  house,  which  had  been  the  early  terminus  of  the  Bristol  or 
Durham  road,  as  it  was  later  called  when  extended  by  a  different 
course  beyond  this  house.  The  old  house  remained  standing  until 
about  the  year  of  1914.  In  this  house  had  been  held  one  of  the 
first  meetings  of  the  Friends  of  Buckingham  in  the  year  1704. 
William  Cooper  died  in  1709.  A  part  of  this  five  hundred  acre 
tract  was  occupied  by  Jacob  Holcomb's  step-father,  John  Hurford, 
who  on  6  mo.  26,  1717,  had  obtained  a  certificate  from  Abington 
Meeting  "in  order  to  transport  himself  to  England"  and  return- 
ing "25  of  ye  5  1720  a  certificate  was  granted  Jo.  Hurford  to  re- 
move to  Buckingham." 

A  map  of  Buckingham  township,  bearing  date  June  16,  1726, 
accompanied  a  petition  of  the  inhabitants  of  Buckingham,  to  ex- 
tend the  road  leading  to  Bristol  from  Jacob  Holcombe's  house 
which  latter  road  had  been  laid  out  about  the  year  of  1706.  Two 
houses  are  shown  on  the  map,  the  Buckingham  Meeting  House 
and  Jacob  Holcomb's  house.  The  land  adjoining  Jacob  Hol- 
comb  is  shown  to  be  held  by  John  Hurford.  The  year  previous, 
6  mo.  3,  1725,  from  a  minute  at  Buckingham  Meeting  we  find 
Jacob  Holcomb  making  a  request  to  have  an  evening  meeting  at 
the  home  of  his  aged  parents,  because  of  their  inability  to  get  to 
the  public  meeting  house. 

Two  children  had  been  born  of  the  marriage  of  John  Hurford 
and  Sarah  Holcomb,  namely,  Grace,  who  married  Robert  Thomas 
of  North  Wales,  Gwynedd,  8  mo.  9,  1722,  and  Samuel,  who  mar- 
ried, 28th  ye  4th,  1731,  Hannah  Semon,  a  daughter  of  Robert 
Heath  and  the  widow  of  1st  Richard  Worrell  and  2nd  Richard 
Semon.  John  Hurford  died  in  1736,  aged  90  years,  and  was 
buried  in  Frankford  township.  Of  his  burial  Thomas  Chalkley  in 
his  journal  made  the  following  note  in  November,  1726. 

"About  this  time  was  buried  at  Frankford,  John  Hurford,  who  was 
about  ninety  years  of  age,  at  whose  burial,  the  coldness  of  the  season 


520  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY   OWNERS 

considered,  were  a  pretty  many  Friends,  neighbors  and  relatives  of  the 
deceased,  as  also  divers  from  Philadelphia." 

Throughout  his  life,  Jacob  Holcomb  was  a  prominent  member 
of  the  Friends  Meeting  at  Buckingham,  having  occupied  various 
offices  in  the  meeting  and  being  a  minister  thereof.  On  occasion, 
he  undertook  missions  to  Long  Island,  Rhode  Island  and  Mary- 
land, as  the  following  extracts  from  the  minutes  will  testify : 

"1  mo.  5,  1738.  A  certificate  requested  for  Jacob  Holcomb  to 
visit  New  England.  6  mo.  6,  1739.  Jacob  Holcomb  returned  his 
certificate  granted  2nd  of  2  mo.,  1739,  and  produced  two  certifi- 
cates, one  from  Dover  Monthly  Meeting  in  New  England  dated 
19th  3  mo.,  1739,  and  one  from  Newport  Yearly  Meeting  in 
Rhode  Island,  dated  11th  of  5  mo.,  1739,  which  were  read  and 
well  received.  11  mo.  3,  1742.  Certificate  granted  Jacob  Holcomb 
to  visit  Long  Island.  1  mo.  7,  1743.  Jacob  Holcomb  returned 
certificate  from  Westbury  Quarterly  Meeting  dated  26  of  12  mo., 
1742."    The  same  type  of  entry  records  his  visit  to  Maryland. 

He  had  eight  children,  one  son  and  seven  daughters.  (1) 
Thomas,  who  married  Hannah  Pennell  of  Providence  Monthly 
Meeting,  6  mo.  3,  1741.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Wm.  and 
Mary  (Mercer)  Pennell  of  Middletown.  (2)  Sarah,  v^ho  mar- 
ried Thomas  Lewis,  7  mo.  6,  1736.  (3)  Rebecca.  (4)  Mary, 
who  married  Jacob  Walton  (Buckingham  Records),  3  mo.  1,  1749. 
(5)  Elizabeth,  who  married  Joseph  Hollowell  of  Philadelphia,  4 
mo.  13,  1745,  (Pine  St.  and  Orange  St.  Monthly  Meeting  rec- 
ords). (6)  Susanna,  who  married  John  Van  Durien  of  Gwy- 
nedd,  (Buckingham  Records)"  4  mo.  6,  1748.  John  Van  Durien 
and  Susanna  Holcomb  declared  intentions  of  marriage  2nd  time." 
"7  mo.  5,  1748,  John  Van  Durien  and  wife  Susanna  remove  cer- 
tificate to  Gwynedd."     (7)  Hannah.     (8)  Sophia. 

Jacob  Holcomb  died  1748,  30th  6  mo.  The  will  of  Jacob  Hol- 
comb is  recorded  in  Bucks  county  Will  Book  No.  2,  p.  118.  To 
his  wife  he  gave  black  mare  she  usually  rideth,  side  saddle,  best 
bed  and  furniture  thereunto  belonging  also  the  chest  of  drawers 
and  her  choice  of  the  other  chests,  one-third  of  his  personal 
estate  and  six  pounds  a  year  during  her  widowhood  to  be  raised 
from  sale  of  the  Plantation.  To  daughter,  Mary,  forty  pounds 
and  one  silver  spoon.  To  daughters  Hannah  and  Sophia  each 
twenty-five  pounds.     Sophia  a  pocket  bible.     To  grandson,  Jacob 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY   OWNERS  521 

Holcomb,  (son  of  Thomas)  one  silver  spoon  marked  with  R.  H., 
also  five  pounds.  Wearing  apparel  to  be  divided  between  son  and 
sons-in-law.  Plantation  to  be  sold  under  advice  of  John  Wat- 
son, Doctor,  and  the  proceeds  to  be  divided  into  nine  equal  parts ; 
Thomas  Holcomb  to  have  two  parts  and  one  part  each  to  daugh- 
ters Sarah,  Rebecca,  Mary,  Elizabeth,  Hannah  and  Sophia. 
"Item.  I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  kinsman,  Barnard  Hough, 
the  sum  of  twenty-five  shillings  when  he  is  to  leave  my  wife." 
Mary  Holcomb,  the  wife,  was  appointed  executrix. 

7th  of  8th  mo.  1758.  A  committee  of  Buckingham  Meeting 
was  appointed  to  collect  memorials  of  deceased  Ministers  and 
Elders,  who  on  the  "8  mo.  6,  1759,  brought  what  they  were  able 
to  collect  to  that  sort ;  viz.  of  John  Dyer,  John  Scarborough, 
Abigal  Paxon,  Jacob  Holcombe  and  Enoch  Pearson,  ministers 
and  of  Thomas  Canby,  Joseph  Fell,  Cephas  Child  and  Benjamin 
Fell,  Elders,  all  of  whom  lived  and  died  in  unity  with  this  meeting 
and  by  their  exemplary  lives  and  services  left  a  good  savor  be- 
hind them."  These  memorials  were  sent  to  the  Bucks  Quarterly 
Meeting.  Two  of  these  memorials,  namely  of  John  Scarborough 
and  Jacob  Holcombe  were  published  in  the  1787  edition  of  "A 
Collection  of  Memorials  Concerning  Divers  Deceased  Ministers 
and  Others  of  the  People  Called  Quakers." 

The  next  owner  of  the  mill-tract  was  Thomas  Canby.  He  had 
come  to  Solebury  from  Cheltenham  township  where  his  initiative 
and  energy  had  brought  him  into  prominence.  On  Dec.  3,  1717, 
Jacob  Holcomb,  miller,  sold  to  Thomas  Canby  four  hundred  and 
forty-four  acres  in  the  Scarborough  tract  and  on  the  same  date, 
two-thirds  of  his  interest  in  the  five  hundred  acre  Heath  mill- 
tract,  the  remaining  one-third  being  taken  by  Morris  Morris  and 
Richard  Walln.  In  other  words,  he  practically  bought  out  Jacob 
Holcomb's  interests  in  Solebury.  Holcomb  then  removed  to  the 
Cooper  tract  in  Buckingham. 

Thomas  Canby  was  a  man  of  exceptional  public  spirit  and 
wherever  he  went  he  immediately  found  a  place  of  leadership. 
He  was  born  at  Thorn  in  Yorkshire,  being  a  son  of  Benjamin 
Canby.     Thomas  had  a  brother  Benjamin  and  a  sister,  Mary. 

Thomas  Canby  was  the  only  child  of  Benjamin  Canby,  so  far 
as  known,  who  came  to  America  to  settle.  Thomas  came  to 
America  earlv  in   1684  with   Henrv   Baker   from   Darbv  in  the 


522  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY   OWNERS 

county  of  Lancaster,  England.  Thomas  was  then  a  lad  aged 
sixteen  years.  Henry  Baker  had  a  certificate  from  the  Friends 
Meeting  at  Hardshaw,  dated  3  mo.  27,  1684,  which  was  for  him- 
self, his  wife,  and  family.  He  located  on  a  three  hundred  acre 
tract  at  what  is  now  Washington  Crossing  on  Delaware  River. 
According  to  tradition  Henry  Baker  was  the  uncle  of  Thomas 
Canby,  but  it  would  appear  that  the  relationship  came  about 
through  Thomas  Canby's  marriage  to  Sarah  Jarvis,  whom  Henry 
Baker  calls  his  cousin.  However  very  soon  after  arrival  in 
America,  Henry  Baker  made  certain  claims  upon  the  services  of 
Thomas  Canby,  to  compensate  him  for  expense  incurred  incident 
to  bringing  him  to  America.  The  matter  was  referred  to  the 
Bucks  Quarterly  Meeting  of  Friends  for  adjustment.  The  fol- 
lowing extract  of  their  decision  is  quoted : 

"At  Bucks  Quarterly  Meeting  held  at  the  house  of  Richard  Hough 
on  the  5th  of  6  mo.  1685. 

"Henry  Baker  hath  brought  in  an  account  of  disbursements  about 
the  bringing  of  Thomas  Canby  into  this  country  and  they  both,  viz. 
Henry  Baker  and  Thomas  Canby  have  referred  the  length  of  time 
the  said  Thomas  Canby  shall  serve  the  said  Henry  Baker  for  the  said 
charge  and  his  passage,  and  it  is  the  agreement  and  judgment  of  this 
meeting,  that  the  said  Thomas  Canby  shall  serve  the  said  Henry  Baker 
five  years  from  this  day  and  that  at  the  expiration  of  the  said  term,  the 
said  Henry  Baker  shall  allow  the  said  Thomas  Canby  apparel  and  corn 
and  w^hat  other  things  are  allowed  by  law  to  minors  so  brought  in; 
and  that  the  indentures  shall  accordingly  be  drawn  and  sealed  by  each 
party,  to  which  judgment  both  parties  declare  their  satisfaction." 

.  This  agreement  expired  in  1690  and  Thomas  now  a  young 
man  of  twenty-one  years  began  a  career  of  public  usefulness. 
He  removed  from  Bucks  county  and  settled  in  Abington  about 
ten  or  eleven  miles  to  the  north  of  Philadelphia  and  one  or  two 
miles  eastward  from  Abington  Friends  Meeting  House  and  near 
Robert  Fletchers.  The  Abington  Meeting  House  had  not  been 
built  at  this  date.  The  Monthly  Meetings  after  30th  6  mo.,  1688,. 
were  held  for  that  vicinity  alternately  at  Byberry  (Poctquesink),. 
Oxford  and  Cheltenham.  (Geo.  Boone's  Mss.,  1718.)  It  is 
probable  that  these  meetings  were  called  the  Dublin  Meeting. 

Thomas  Canby  was  a  member  of  the  Abington  Friends  Meeting^ 
from  the  minutes  of  which  the  following  is  extracted : 

"25th  7  mo.,  1693.  Certificate  granted  Thomas  Canby  in  order 
to  proceed  in  marriage  with  Sarah  Jervis  of  Philadelphia." 


THE   OLD   HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS  523 

Sarah  Jervis  appears  to  have  been  a  cousin  of  Henry  Baker  as 
when  the  latter  wrote  his  will  3  mo.  7th,  1698,  he  provided : 

"Ninthly,  I  give  to  Thomas  Canbe  one  mare  which  he  now 
hath." 

"Twealthy,  I  give  to  my  cousin  Sarah  Canbe  five  pound  English 
money  which  I  lent  her  mother." 

The  will  was  proved  May  23,  1705,  but  he  died  prior  to  16th 
12  mo.,  170.1. 

Henry  Baker  had  shortly  before  this  date,  actually,  in  1696,  re- 
moved to  Buckingham,  now  Bristol,  where  he  became  associated 
with  Samuel  Carpenter  in  operating  the  first  mill  in  Bristol.  The 
deed  of  agreement  between  them,  dated  7  mo.  3rd,  1698,  is  a 
very  interesting  document.  (Bucks  County,  Vol  II,  p.  199.) 
He  was  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Assembly  1685,  1687,  1688, 
1689,  1690,  and  1698.  He  was  also  a  member  of  the  Provincial 
Council  1689-90.  It  may  thus  be  seen  that  Thomas  Canby  had 
an  influential  guardian  whose  early  example  must  have  had  some 
influence  upon  his  character. 

Nine  children  were  born  of  the  marriage  of  Thomas  Canby  and 
Sarah  Jervis,  viz:  (1)  Benjamin,  who  died  young.  (2)  Sarah, 
who  married  John  Hill  at  Falls  Meeting  1719.  (3)  Elizabeth, 
who  married  Thomas  Lacy  at  Buckingham  1723.  (4)  Mary, 
who  married  Joseph  Hampton  at  Buckingham  1722.  (5)  Phebe, 
who  married  1st,  Robert  Smith  at  Falls  Meeting,  1719;  and  2nd, 
Hugh  Ely.  (6)  Esther,  who  married  John  Stapler.  (7)  Thomas 
who  married  Sarah  Preston  at  Buckingham  Meeting  1724,  and 
had  eight  children.  (8)  Benjamin,  who  married  1st,  Martha 
Preston  at  Buckingham  Meeting,  1724,  and  2nd,  Sarah  Yardly 
in  1734.  (9)  Martha,  who  married  James  Gillingham  at  Buck- 
ingham Meeting,   1731. 

Sometime  about  1699,  the  project  of  building  a  meeting  house 
at  Abington  was  undertaken.  "xA-t  a  meeting  held  the  25th  of  1st 
mo.,  1700,  Friends  appoint  Joseph  Phipps,  Thomas  Canby  and 
William  Jenkins  to  inspect  ye  accounts  of  Everard  Bolton  and 
Samuel  Cart  concerning  the  building  of  the  meeting  house  at 
Abington  and  bring  an  account  to  ye  next  meeting"  (Boone's 
Mss.  1718).  The  meeting  was  built  on  land  patented  to  John 
Barnes  1st  6  mo.,  1684,  and  by  deed  dated  5th  of  2nd  mo.,  1697, 
he  donated  "unto   Samuel  Cart,  Everard  Bolton,  Evan   Morris, 


524  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS 

Robert   Fletcher,   and  Thomas   Canby  all   that  tract  of   land  in 
Abington  township  with  all  appurtenances  forever." 

By  another  deed  dated  19th  of  4  mo.,  1698,  reciting  among 
other  things  that  it  was  made  in  trust : 

"That  they  or  so  many  of  them  as  should  be  and  continue  in  unity 
and  religious  fellowship  with  friends  in  truth  and  remain  member  of 
the  monthly  meeting  of  Dublin  whereunto  they  then  did  belong  should 
stand  of  the  said  120  acres."  "To  the  uses  and  intents  therein  and 
hereinafter  limited  and  expressed,  and  to  no  other  purpose  whatsoever, 
that  is  to  say  for  and  towards  the  erection  of  a  meeting  house  for 
Friends  and  towards  the  maintenance  of  a  school  as  they  the  said 
trustees  with  the  advice  and  direction  of  Friends  belonging  to  said 
monthly  meeting." 

The  meeting  house  appears  to  have  been  completed  by  June. 
1700. 

Thomas  Canby  remained  active  in  the  Abington  Meeting  up  to 
the  date  of  his  removal  therefrom  in  1718.  He  was  successively 
appointed  one  of  the  committee  to  attend  the  Quarterly  Meeting 
30th  3rd  mo.,  1715;  30th  11  mo.,  1715;  30th  5  mo.,  1716;  28th 
11  mo.,  1716;  and  30th  5th  mo.,  1717.  On  the  31st  1  mo., 
1718,  he  was  granted  a  certificate  in  order  to  remove  his  family 
to  Falls  Monthly  Meeting,  the  Buckingham  Meeting  not  being 
an  independent  meeting  until  1720.  He  continued,  however,  to 
act  as  one  of  the  trustees  of  the  Barnes  deed  at  the  Abington 
Meeting  until  1722.  On  the  27th  2  mo.,  1719,  the  deed  for  the 
Abington  Meeting  was  held  in  the  names  of  Morris  Morris, 
Robert  Fletcher,  Thomas  Canby  and  Daniel  Thomas ;  Thomas 
Canby  being  the  only  one  of  the  original  trustees.  The  28th  10 
mo.,  1713,  Samuel  Cart  and  Evan  Morris  being  deceased,  and 
Robert  Fletcher  having  removed,  Daniel  Thomas,  Morris  Morris 
and  Robert  Fletcher,  Jr.,  were  appointed  in  their  place  on  the 
Barnes  trust.  On  the  26th  1  mo.,  1722,  Richard  Martin  was  ap- 
pointed as  a  trustee  vice  Thomas  Canby,  who  had  been  a  trustee 
of  Abington  Meeting  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Thomas  Canby's  first  wife  died  on  the  2nd  of  the  4th  month, 
1708,  and  about  the  6th  mo.,  1709,  he  married  Mary,  the  daughter 
of  Evan  and  Jean  Oliver  from  Radnorshire  in  Wales.  By  this 
wife  he  had  eight  children,  viz  :  ( 1 )  Jane,  born  4  mo.  12,  1710,  who 
married  Thomas  Paxson  at  Buckingham  Meeting,  1732.  (2) 
Rebecca,  who  married  Samuel  Wilson.     (3)   Hannah,  who  died 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY   OWNERS  525 

young.  (4)  Joseph,  who  had  no  descendants.  (5)  Rachel,  un- 
married. (6)  Ohver,  who  married  EHzabeth  Shipley.  (7)  Ann, 
unmarried  and    (8)    Lydia,  who  married  John  Johnson. 

About  the  date  of  his  second  marriage,  Thomas  Canby,  then  a 
resident  of  Abington  township,  made  an  agreement  dated  18th 
of  4  mo.,  1708,  by  which  he  contributed  a  tract  of  fifty  acres,  in 
a  partnership  with  Robert  Fletcher,  Samuel  Cart,  and  Joshua 
Tittery  for  the  building  of  a  water  corn  mill.  Robert  Fletcher 
contributed  fifty-one  acres.  The  land  contributed  by  Canby  is 
described  as  bounded  by  land  of  Robert  Fletcher;  by  other  land 
of  Thomas  Canby;  by  land  of  Lewis  Jones;  and  land  of  Thomas 
Roberts.  (Phila.  Co.  Deed  E-5,  Vol.  VII,  pp.  18-29.)  On  the 
7th  of  April,  1711,  Canby  sold  his  one-fourth  interest  in  this 
land  and  mill  to  William  Roberts.  Canby  with  his  wife,  Mary, 
executed  their  deed  before  Richard  Heath,  then  deputy  recorder 
of  deeds  for  Philadelphia  county.  This  deed  states  in  part : 
"Whereas  the  said  Saml  Cart.  Joshua  Tittery,  Robert  Fletcher  and 
Thomas  Canby  have  since  at  their  joint  and  equal  charges,  erected, 
made,  built,  a  Water  Corn  Mill  or  Grist  Mill  on  the  two  pieces 
of  land  aforesaid,  conveyed  to  them  by  Thomas  Story,"  etc. 
(Phila.  Co.  Deed  E-7,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  21.) 

He  then  appears  to  have  entered  a  partnership  with  Morris 
Morris,  son  of  Evan  Morris  one  of  the  trustees  with  him  at  the 
Abington  Meeting.  Their  mill  property  consisted  of  two  tracts 
of  land,  the  first  bought  of  Richard  Dungworth,  30th  January, 
1711,  containing  six  and  one-half  acres  with  a  gristmill  thereon. 
The  other  tract  was  purchased  of  Samuel  Bolton  the  6th  day  of 
August,  1712,  and  contained  thirty  acres.  Thomas  Canby  and 
Mary,  his  wife;  and  Morris  Morris  and  Susanna,  his  wife;  later 
sold  a  one-third  share  in  the  mill  and  property  unto  Richard 
Martin  of  Cheltenham  township,  miller.  Thomas  Canby  now 
owning  one-third  interest  in  the  mill,  sold  his  one-third  share  to 
Anthony  Morris,  merchant  of  Philadelphia,  by  deed  dated  23rd 
November,  1717.  The  two  tracts  comprising  that  property  are 
thus  described : 

"Beginning  at  Quesanamings  creek  thence  by  land  of  Richard  Hall 
NNE  38  perches  to  a  post  on  the  brow  of  the  hill,  thence  WS°  W  by 
land  of  Thomas  Maddox  35  perches  to  a  post,  thence  SW  by  land  of 
John  Day  crossing  said  creek  27  perches  to  a  post;  thence  SE  by  said 


526  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY    OWNERS 

Richard  Hall's  land  8  perches  to  an  oak  thence  by  said  Hall's  land  E  to 
a  post  by  same  creek  8  perches,  then  down  the  several  courses  of  the 
creek  to  the  beginning,  containing  6>4  acres  with  a  grist  mill  thereon 
erected,  together  with  appurtenances."  (This  land  bought  of  Richard 
Dungworth  30th  Jan.  1711.)  "And  whereas  Samuel  Bolton  of  the  said 
county,  yeoman,  in  and  by  a  certain  other  Deed  Poll  under  his  hand 
and  seal  duly  executed,  bearing  date  the  6th  of  August  1712  for  the 
consideration  therein  mentioned,  did  grant  and  confirm  unto  the  said 
Thomas  Canby  and  Morris  Morris,  a  certain  piece  of  land  situate  in 
the  township  of  Cheltenham.  Beginning  at  a  corner  white  oak  in  line 
of  Richard  Hall's  land  a  little  above  the  old  mill  on  the  NE  side  of  the 
creek,  thence  NE  by  said  Hall's  land  110  perches  to  a  corner  stake, 
then  NW  by  John  Paul's  land  and  Jeremiah  Pratt's  land  48  perches 
to  a  stake,  thence  SW  by  said  Samuel  Bolton's  other  land  86  perches 
to  a  corner  black  oak  by  Frankfort  creek,  thence  by  said  creek  17 
perches,  thence  S  63°  E  12  perches  to  a  black  oak  by  said  creek,  thence 
S  18°  E,  30  perches  to  the  first  mentioned  white  oak,  containing  30 
acres  and  14  perches  together  with  the  appurtenances."  (Phila.  County 
Deed  Book  E  7,  Vol  10,  p.  413.) 

Thomas  Canby  possessed  other  land  in  Cheltenham  and  Lower 
DubHn  townships.  One  tract  of  fifty-seven  acres  on  the  south 
side  of  Pennepeka  creek,  near  land  of  Thomas  Kitchen,  was  pur- 
chased by  Thomas  Canby  and  William  Busby,  from  Abigail  Ma- 
son, February  20,  1715.  (Phila.  Co.  Deeds  E-7,  Vol.  IX,  p.  373.) 
He  purchased  a  tract  of  seventy  and  one-half  acres  from  Peter 
Taylor  December,  1715,  this  being  contiguous  to  other  land  held 
by  him.  He  traded  with  John  Paul,  December  2,  1713,  a  tract  of 
one  hundred  and  ninety-eight  acres  in  Dublin  township  for  an- 
other tract  of  one  hundred  and  sixteen  acres  with  tenement  there- 
on located  in  the  same  township.  (Phila.  County  Deed  I-l,  Vol. 
I,  p.  329;  Vol.  II,  p.  177.)  As  stated  above  Thomas  Canby  sold 
his  interest  in  the  mill  at  Cheltenham  township  23  November, 
1717,  and  a  few  days  later  namely  on  December  2  and  3,  1717, 
he  purchased  Jacob  Holcomb's  interest  in  the  Heath  Mill.  He 
now  removed  from  Cheltenham  township  to  the  mill  tract  in 
Solebury.  According  to  tradition  Thomas  Canby  removed  from 
Abington  to  Buckingham  township,  locating  on  a  part  of  the 
Lundy  tract  where  the  Bristol  road,  now  the  Durham  road, 
crosses  the  York  road,  and  now  called  Buckingham.  He  is 
said  to  have  built  a  stone  house  the  walls  of  which  are  part  of 
the  General  Green  Inn,  so-called  because  it  was  at  one  time 
occupied  by  General  Green  during  the  Revolutionary  War.     He 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY   OWNERS  527 

is  said  to  have  sold  that  property  to  Samuel  Blaker  and  pur- 
chased in  Solebury  and  removed  to  the  mill  property  there.  This 
tradition  appears  to  be  erroneous.  The  land  in  Buckingham  re- 
ferred to  above  was,  when  Canby  left  Cheltenham,  in  the  posses- 
sion of  Benjamin  Hopper  who  in  1724' sold  to  James  Lennox  in 
whose  possession  it  was  in  1726  when  the  map  to  which  I  have 
referred  was  prepared.  It  was  sold  to  Thomas  Canby  in  1729, 
then  to  Samuel  Blaker  in  1747,  at  which  date,  if  we  are  cor- 
rectly informed  Thomas  Canby,  the  elder,  had  been  dead  for  two 
years.  Furthermore  the  sale  was  made  by  Thomas  Canby  and 
his  wife  Sarah.  As  Thomas  Canby,  Jr.,  married  Sarah  Preston 
in  1722,  it  was  probably  this  Thomas,  and  not  Thomas  Canby, 
Sr.  (whose  wife's  name  was  Jane),  who  was  in  possession  of 
this  land  when  sold.     (Bucks  county  Deed,  Vol.  XXX,  p.  181.) 

That  tract  has  a  most  interesting  history.  It  was  a  part  of  a 
one  thousand  acre  tract  patented  to  Jacob  Telnor  9  and  10  March 
1682.  (Patent  Book  A.  Vol.  I,  p.  192.)  It  was  traded  by  Tel- 
nor to  Richard  Lundy  for  a  tract  of  two  hundred  acres  on  the 
Delaware,  it  being  then  described  as  "back  in  the  woods."  (Bucks 
county,  Vol.  I,  p.  169.) 

On  the  Scarborough  tract  of  which  Thomas  Canby  had  bought 
four  hundred  and  forty-four  acres  from  Jacob  Holcomb  the 
same  date  (Dec.  3.  1717).  that  he  purchased  the  mill  tract,  his 
sons  Benjamin  and  Thomas  Canby  each  built  houses,  one  of 
these  coming  into  possession  of  Mathias  Hutchinson,  who  built 
the  present  Friends  Meeting  House  at  Buckingham.  Thomas 
Canby  operated  the  Heath  mill  in  partnership  with  Anthony 
Morris  of  Philadelphia.  This  mill  is  on  a  stream  flowing  from 
the  Great  Spring,  called  Aquetong,  or  Ingham's  Spring.  The 
mill  was  locally  known  about  this  time  as  Canby's  mill,  and  it  is 
designated  as  Canby's  mill  by  Watson  when  he  surveyed  the 
York  road  from  Wells  ferry  to  Buckingham  about  thirty  years 
after  the  purchase  from  Holcombe. 

Thomas  Canby's  second  wife  Mary,  died  6th  of  4  mo.,  1721 
(new  style),  aged  43  years  3  months.  On  the  9th  of  the  8th 
month,  1722,  he  married  Jane  Preston,  a  widow.  There  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  any  children  born  of  this  third  marriage. 
For  sometime  he  continued  to  carry  on  the  business  at  the  mill. 
Shortly  before  his  death  he  obtained  a  certificate  to  remove  to 


528  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS 

the  present  State  of  Delaware,  where  his  son  Ohver  Canby  lo- 
cated. This  certificate  is  dated  2mo  5th,  1742,  and  is  addressed 
to  the  New  work  (Newark)  Meeting,  New  Castle  county. 
Oliver  Canby's  certificate  of  removal  to  the  same  meeting  was 
issued  this  same  date.  Thomas  Canby  remained  in  New  Castle 
county  but  a  short  time,  returning  to  Solebury  where  he  died. 
In  his  will  dated  8th  of  9th  mo.,  1742,  he  gives  his  residence  as 
Solebury. 

The  name  of  Thomas  Canby  and  his  descendants  are  frequently 
found  in  the  records  of  various  Friends  meetings  in  Pennsyl- 
vania and  West  Jersey.  He  did  much  business  and  performed 
much  public  service  in  the  communities  where  he  resided.  He 
served  as  a  justice  of  peace  in  Bucks  county  on  many  occasions, 
having  been  selected  Dec.  12,  1719,  Jan.  4,  1722,  May  12,  1725, 
Sept.  13,  1726,  Sept.  12,  1727,  and  Nov.  22,  1738.  He  also  served 
as  a  member  of  the  assembly  from  Bucks  county  for  the  years, 
1721,  1722,  1730  and  1738.  He  was  clerk  of  the  Buckingham 
Meeting  for  a  number  of  years  and  served  in  the  meeting  in  va- 
rious other  capacities.  A  committee  of  the  meeting  in  1759  pre- 
pared a  memorial  for  him  as  one  of  their  elders,  which  was  de- 
posited with  the  Bucks  Quarterly  Meeting.  The  will  of  Thomas 
Canby  is  recorded  in  Bucks  County  Will  Book  No.  2,  page  209, 
and  is  dated  8th  day  9  mo.,  1742.  He  left  the  mill  property  to 
his  son  Benjamin,  having  previously  sold  5  mo.  1st,  1718,  one- 
sixth  part  to  Anthony  Morris  and  two  years  later,  namely  12  mo. 
20th,  1720,  one-fourth  to  Thomas  Chalkley.  Thomas  Chalkley, 
4th  mo.  25,  1724,  sold  his  one-fourth  part  to  Anthony  Morris,  so 
at  the  time  of  his  death  the  mill  tract  was  owned  jointly  by 
Thomas  Canby  and  Anthony  Morris.  The  item  disposing  of  the 
mill  in  Thomas  Canby's  will  reads  as  follows : 

"Item.  I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  beloved  son  Benjamin  Canby 
all  my  Real  Estate  in  partnership  with  Anthony  Morris,  land, 
mill  and  saw  mill  and  all  appurtenances — land  and  premises 
thereunto  belonging  to  him,  his  heirs  and  assigns  forever." 

Benjamin  Canby,  the  son  of  Thomas  Canby,  continued  to 
operate  the  mill,  and  became  an  extensive  owner  of  real  estate  in 
that  region.  The  3  mo.  17,  1731,  he  purchased  two  hundred  and 
fifty  acres  of  the  Randall  Spikeman  five  hundred  acres,  which  he 
sold  Jan.  7,  1734,  to  Samuel  Eastburn.    He  also  purchased  from 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS  529 

John  Wells  the  owner  of  the  ferry  tract,  three  tracts  of  land  con- 
taining in  all  two  hundred  fifty-six  and  three  fourths  acres,  two 
of  the  tracts  fronting  on  the  Delaware  river  which  will  be  de- 
scribed more  fully  in  discussing  the  ferry  tract. ^  This  purchase 
was  made  by  deed  dated  Oct.  29,  1749.  He  succeeded  John  Wells 
as  the  ferryman  at  the  crossing  of  the  Old  York  road,  and  also 
as  the  tavern  keeper  at  the  ferry.  His  name,  and  the  names  of 
his  children,  frequently  occur  not  only  in  the  records  of  the 
Buckingham  Meeting,  but  also  in  the  Kingwood  Meeting  of  New 
Jersey.  He  did  much  business  among  the  people  as  a  mill  owner, 
tavern  owner,  ferryman,  and  promotor  of  an  iron  works  in  the 
Jerseys.  Benjamin  Canby  married  twice.  His  first  wife  was 
Martha  Preston  a  daughter  of  William  Preston.  They  had  three 
children,  namely  (1)  Thomas,  born  1  mo.  26  day,  1725,  (2) 
Joseph,  born  8  mo.  20  day,  1726,  and  (3)  Benjamin,  born  5  mo. 
31  day,  1728.  His  wife,  Martha,  died  9  mo.  1  day,  1729,  and  he 
married  second  Sarah  Yardley  at  Buckingham  Meeting,  1734.  The 
children  of  the  second  marriage  were  (4)  Sarah,  born  8  mo.  4, 
1735,  (5)  William,  born  2  mo.  6  day,  1736,  (6)  Ann,  born  9  mo. 
1st  day,  1738,  (7)  Thomas,  born'  11  mo.  26  day,  1739,  (8) 
Lachen,  born  6  mo.  16  day,  1743,  (9)  Samuel,  born  4  mo.  6th, 
1745,  and  (10)  Charles,  born  8  mo.  26,  1747.  Thomas  Yardley, 
Sr.,  had  come  into  possession  of  a  large  part  of  the  mill  tract, 
he  having  purchased  the  interests  of  Anthony  Morris,  1st  mo. 
10th,  1753.  The  will  of  Benjamin  Canby  is  thus  recorded :  (Will 
Book  Bucks  County  B,  p.  133.) 

WILL  OF  BENJAMIN   CANBY. 

Be  it  Remembered  this  Sixteenth  day  of  the  Tenth  Month  and  in 
the  Year  of  our  Lord  one  Thousand  Seven  Hundred  and  forty  Eight, 
calhng  to  mind  that  it  is  appointed  for  all  men  to  dye  and  being  Weak 
of  Body  but  in  perfect  Sense  and  Memory  thanks  be  given  to  God 
for  the  same  I  do  appoint  Constitute  and  Ordain  this  my  Last  Will 
and  Testament  in  Manner  and  form  following. 

That  is  to  say  I  Recommended  my  Soul  to  God  that  Gave  it  and  my 
Body  to  be  buried  in  a  Christian  Manner  at  the  Discretion  of  my  said 
Executors. 

First  I  do  order  that  all  my  Just  debts  and  Leageaceys  shall  be  paid. 

Secondly — I  do  hereby  order  that  my  said  Estate  shall  be  disposed 
of  to  the  Best  advantage  Boath  Rele  and  personal.  If  my  said  execu- 
tors with  the  Consent  of  my  Well  Beloved  Wife  Shall  see  caus  to  con- 

1   See  "The  Old  York  Road,"  p.   650   this  volume. 


530  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY    OWNERS 

tinue  and  keep  my  said  Estate  or  any  part  thereof  in  their  Possion 
which  shall  be  To  the  advantage  of  my  wife  and  children. 

Item — I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  well  Beloved  Wife  Sarah  Canby 
and  to  my  daughter  Sarah  Canby  William  Canby  Anne  Canby  Thomas 
Canby  and  Samuel  Canby  all  my  Estate  Boath  Rele  and  personal  (after 
my  just  debts  and  Leguesys  are  paid)   share  and  share  alike. 

But  in  case  my  said  Executors  shall  see  cause  to  keep  my  Estate  or 
any  part  of  it  in  their  Possion  to  advance  my  Children's  Portions  it  is 
also  my  Desire  that  my  Exr's  shall  make  a  Discreet  Tryall  of  the  Iron- 
works or  any  other  part  of  my  Estate  and  finding  they  are  Profitable 
to  my  Wife  and  Children  upon  a  Strict  Examination  of  accounts  Yearly 
by  my  Executors  and  my  Beloved  Wife  for  she  shall  have  full  power 
to  call  my  said  Exr's  to  an  account  yearly  or  ofener.  if  she  shall  see 
cause  during  her  widowhood  But  in  case  my  said  Wife  should  marry 
that  then  shall  have  Liberty  to  chuse  Six  freeholders  and  my  Exr's. 
six  other  freeholders  to  value  my  clear  Estate  after  my  just  Debts  and 
Legeccies  are  paid  that  then  my  wife  shall  have  her  proportionable 
share  as  above  mentioned  or  otherwise  if  she  should  continue  a  Widow 
and  Desire  her  Part  of  the  Estate  above  said  it  is  my  Desire  it  may  be 
so  put  to  her  use  as  she  shall  see  good. 

It  is  my  Desire  that  my  Exrs.  or  any  two  of  them  that  they  should 
have  power  to  act  in  the  remaining  part  of  my  estate  for  the  use  of 
my  Children  untill  the  Eldest  arrives  to  the  age  of  Twenty-one  that 
then  if  the  said  Legetey  Desires  his  or  her  share  of  the  said  Estate 
that  then  the  said  Legatey  and  Exrs.  shall  chuse  12  men  to  appraise 
&  c. 

Whereas  there  was  a  Defect  in  an  Agreement  between  George  Ely 
and  me  concerning  the  premises  where  the  said  Ely  now  lives  by  Rea- 
son of  Leases  not  being  completed  that  it  may  and  shall  be  lawful  for 
my  Exr's  if  they  see  cause  to  enter  into  the  premises  and  Dispose  of 
them  after  giving  notice  to  the  said  Ely  three  months. 

Item — I  give  and  bequeath  unto  my  son  Benjamin  Canby  the  House 
and  Improvements  with  fifty  Acres  of  Land  where  Henry  Burkhart 
now  dwelles  with  all  the  profits  arrising  therefrom  to  him  his  heirs  for 
ever  and  the  same  land  to  be  laid  out  to  the  most  advantage  of  my  Exrs. 

Item — I  give  and  Bequeath  unto  my  Loving  Cousen  Elizabeth  Head 
two  Silver  Spoons  and  a  set  of  tee  spoons  in  remembrance  of  me. 

Item — I  give  and  Bequeath  unto  my  friend  John  Mills  the  sum  of  ten 
pounds  for  ever  to  be  paid  in  three  years  after  my  decease. 

It  is  further  my  desire  that  my  said  Children  shall  be  brought  up 
at  the  Discretion  of  my  Beloved  Wife  and  Executors  and  the  charge 
of  my  said  Children's  Bringing  up  shall  be  paid  untill  they  are  fitt  to 
be  Apprenticed  out  by  my  Executors. 

I  do  make  and  ordain  by  Beloved  Friends  William  Hill,  William 
Yeardly  and  Thomas  Yeardly  Junior  my  sole  Executors  of  this  my  last 
Will  and  Testament.     In  Witness  whereof  I  the  said  Benjamin  Canby 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY    OWNERS  531 

have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and  Seal  to  this  my  last  Will  and  Testa- 
ment the  day  and  year  first  above  written.  .^ 

Signed  Sealed  and  Delivered   By  the  Said  Benjamin   Canby 
as  for  his  last  Will  and  Testament  in  the  presence  of 
Randal  Hutchinson 

George   Ely  BENJA   CANBY. 

Sarah  Hill 
Proved  16  February  1748  by  Randal  Hutchinson  and  on  24th  day  of 
same  by  Sarah  Hill. 

Letters  granted  Feb.  24,  1748,  to  Wm.  Hill,  Wm.  Yeardly  and  Thos. 
Yeardly. 

The  inventory  of  his  personal  estate  aniounting  to  £1475,  6s, 
Od.  was  filed  Feb.  i6.  1748. 

This  takes  us  through  the  first  half  century  of  the  mill  and  its 
owners,  during  which  it  served  the  inhabitants  of  the  neighbor- 
hood with  no  other  near  competitor.  Many  of  the  Quakers  from 
across  the  river  on  the  New  Jersey  side,  like  John  Comfort, 
Samuel  Coate,  John  Holcombe  and  others,  sent  their  corn  to 
this  mill.  It  had  a  great  influence  in  turning  the  course  of  the 
York  road  from  Readings  landing,  to  what  the  Pennsylvanians 
call  Wells  Ferry. 

Samuel  Coate  up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  operated  a  ferry 
from  the  New  Jersey  side.  His  will  dated  Nov.  22,  1723,  men- 
tions one  of  his  fields,  now  within  the  limits  of  Lambertville,  as 
lying  along  the  "Yoark  Road."  I  found  among  the  unpublished 
manuscripts  at  Harrisburg  a  petition  from  the  inhabitants  of 
Solebury,  dated  15th  3  mo.,  1730,  which  stated  that  the  York 
road  had  been  laid  out  toward  Readings  ferry,  on  a  promise  from 
the  inhabitants  of  New  Jersey  that  a  road  to  New  York  would 
be  built  by  them  to  meet  it.  But  instead  of  building  the  road 
to  Reading's  landing,  at  what  is  now  Stockton,  N.  J.,  the  New 
Jersey  inhabitants  had  built  their  road  to  the  landing  against 
John  Wells  ferry,  at  what  is  now  Lambertville,  N.  J.,  and  also  a 
ferry  had  been  authorized  (Wells  Ferry)  which  made  the  upper 
road  useless.  And  so  they  petitioned  that  the  council  cancel  its' 
authority  for  a  road  to  John  Reading's  landing  and  authorize  in 
its  place  the  road  to  Wells  ferry.  Heath's  mill  probably  had  its 
share  in  diverting  the  crossing  to  this  point. 

The  increasing  prominence  of  the  mill,  owing  to  increasing 
population  on  both  the  Pennsylvania  and  the  New  Jersey  sides  of 


532  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY   OWNERS 

the  river,  increased  the  value  of  the  mill  and  the  value  of  the 
large  tract  of  land  upon  which  it  was  situated.  The  selling  of  an 
interest  as  a  one-fourth  part,  a  one-sixth  part,  and  a  three- 
fourths  part  naturally  led  to  a  confusion  of  rights  necessitating  a 
deed  of  partition.  Anthony  Morris  and  Phebe,  his  wife,  sold 
January  15,  1751,  their,  three-fourths  share  in  the  mill,  and  their 
remainder  of  the  original  tract,  to  Thomas  Yardley,  Sr.,  of 
Upper  Makefield.  And  Yardley  at  the  same  time  purchased  from 
the  heirs  of  Benjamin  Canby,  their  one-fourth  interest  in  the 
mill  property.  Not  long  after  Thomas  Yardley  died  and  the  mill 
property  was  bequeathed  to  his  son  Samuel  Yardley.  Samuel 
Yardley  also  died  and  without  making  a  will.  The  tract  was 
then  sold  to  several  purchasers.  Among  these  purchasers  were 
Jonathan  Ingham,  William  Kitchen,  Richard  Corson,  William 
Pettit,  Oliver  Paxson,  Geo.  Ely,  William  Magill  and  John  Hill- 
born,  executor  of  Joseph  Wilkinson.  The  mill  tract,  containing 
the  Heath  mill  or  "Teen  mill"  as  it  was  called  in  the  deed  was 
then  sold  to  Phillip  Atkinson  by  William  Yardley,  the  eldest  broth- 
er and  executor  of  the  property  of  Samuel  Yardley.  This  sale  was 
made  in  1761,  and  the  tract  with  the  mill  then  comprised  three 
hundred  and  eighty-two  acres.  Phillip  Atkinson  became  inter- 
ested in  several  tracts  of  land  about  New  Hope  in  both  the 
tract  known  as  the  mill  tract  and  the  tract  of  John  Wells, 
known  as  the  ferry  tract.  Phillip  Atkinson  was  a  son  of 
Thomas  Atkinson  of  Amwell.  This  Thomas  was  a  son  of 
Timothy  Atkinson  who  emigrated  from  England,  and  is  said 
to  have  settled  at  Gunpowder  Creek,  Maryland.  Timothy  had 
several  children,  some  of  whom  are  mentioned  in  his  wife's  will. 
After  the  death  of  Timothy,  Ann,  his  wife,  married  John  Gos- 
ney  of  Woodbridge,  N.  J.  Ann  Gosney,  gentlewoman,  died  in 
1740,  and  in  her  will  she  mentions  two  of  her  sons,  John  and 
Thomas  Atkinson,  and  four  daughters,  namely,  Sarah,  Hannah, 
Mary  and  Elizabeth.  She  mentions  Susannah  and  Rachel  At- 
kinson, daughters  of  her  son  John,  and  Ann  and  Timothy  xA.tkin- 
son,  children  of  son  Thomas.     (N.  J.  Liber  C,  p.  375.) 

Thomas  Atkinson,  the  father  of  Phillip  Atkinson,  was  born 
May  20,  1703,  (this  and  other  facts  following  regarding  birth  of 
children  from  bible  of  his  son  Joseph).  In  early  manhood  he 
lived  in  Woodbridge,   N.  J.,  where  he  married  Hannah  Dodd- 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY    OWNERS  533 

ridge,  daughter  of  Phillip  and  Francis  (Money)  Doodridge.  She 
was  born  at  Woodbridge,  May  22,  1708,  and  married  Thomas 
Atkinson  Oct.  17,  1728.  The  Atkinsons  belonged  to  the  Society 
of  Friends.  Sometime  prior  to  1744,  probably  shortly  after  the 
death  of  his  mother,  Thomas  Atkinson  removed  to  Amwell,  New 
Jersey,  in  the  vicinity  of  Quakertown,  where  he  became  a  promi- 
nent member  of  the  Friends  meeting  at  this  place.  The  children 
of  Thomas  and  Hannah  Doddridge  Atkinson  were:  (1)  Ann, 
born  Aug.  14,  1729,  who  married  1st,  Elisha  Emley,  Nov.  4,  1754, 
and  2nd,  Richard  Holcombe,  June  19,  1766.  (2)  Timothy,  born 
April  25,  1732.  (3)  Francis,  born  March  16,  1734.  (4)  Phillip 
Atkinson,  born  Feb.  10,  1736.  (5)  Thomas  Atkinson,  born  May 
31,  1737.  (6)  John  Atkinson,  born  Jan.  1,  1740.  (7)  Asher 
Atkinson,  born  Aug.  1,  1742.  (8)  Joseph  Atkinson,  born  July 
1st,  1744,  who  married  1st  Jemimah  Paul,  2nd  Susannah  (Paul) 
Rakestraw,  widow  of  Bevan  Rakestraw,  and  3rd  Sarah  Alex- 
ander. (9)  Hannah,  born  June  9,  1748.  (10)  Enoch  Atkinson, 
born  Jan.  1,  1750.  Thomas  Atkinson,  father  of  the  above  chil- 
dren, died  April  4,  1788.  When  Benjamin  Canby,  Jr.,  married 
Martha  Whitson  of  Amwell  in  1752,  Thomas,  Hannah,  Francis 
and  Phillip  Atkinson  were  present  as  witnesses.  Thomas  and 
Phillip  Atkinson  became  interested  in  the  property  where  New 
Hope  is  now  located  and  purchased  some  valuable  pieces.  Philip 
Atkinson  and  his  wife,  Sarah,  sold  a  large  part  of  the  mill  tract, 
containing  two  hundred  and  twelve  acres,  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  perches,  the  southwestern  portion  of  the  mill  tract,  containing 
the  Tean  Mill,  to  William  Pettit,  July  6,  1763,  the  consideration 
being  $1700.  William  Pettit,  who  purchased  from  Phillip  Atkin- 
son, was  born  Jan.  1,  1726,  near  Trenton.  His  ancestor  in  Amer- 
ica was  Thomas  Pettit,  who  with  his  wife.  Christian  Mellowes, 
were  residents  of  Boston,  Mass.,  in  1635.  One  of  Thomas'  sons, 
Nathaniel,  born  1645,  with  his  wife  Mary,  removed  from  New- 
town, L.  I.,  and  in  1696  settled  on  land  at  the  Falls  of  Delaware 
adjoining  Joshua  Ely.  One  of  his  daughters,  Jane,  married 
George  Ely,  who  later  came  into  possession  of  both  sides  of  the 
river  at  Coryells  ferry.  A  son  of  Nathaniel  Pettit,  named  John 
married  Mary  Hallet  about  1725,  and  their  son  William  was  born 
January  1,  1726.  W^illiam  was  twice  married,  first  to  Charity 
Stevenson  and  2nd  to  Lydia ,  who  joined  with  him 


534  THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS    EARLY    OWNERS 

in  the  sale  of  a  portion  of  the  mill  tract  March  22,  1784.  They 
now  removed  to  Chester  county,  Pa.,  where  they  were  living  Nov. 
11,  1791,  when  they  sold  the  Heath  Mill  to  Andrew  Ellicott  of 
Solebury,  yeoman,  and  Nathaniel  Ellicott  of  Buckingham,  yeo- 
man. 

The  Heath  mill  now  had  competitors  in  the  mill  at  Carversville 
(owned  by  one  of  theEllicotts  and  connected  by  the  Suggan  road), 
Pine  Run  mill.  Spring  Valley  mill.  Prime  Hope  mill  (on  New 
Jersey  shore  of  Delaware),  and  a  new  mill  was  about  to  come 
into    existence    which    would    give    the    name    to    the    vicinity. 

The  Atkinsons  became  further  interested  in  the  erection  of  mill 
property  and  built  the  mill  opposite  the  old  Parry  homestead,  on 
the  riverside.  This  mill  is  referred  to  in  a  deed  from  William 
Pettit  to  Thomas  Atkinson  of  Amwell,  miller.  It  appears  that  by 
an  agreement  between  William  Pettit  and  Philip  Atkinson,  the 
latter  agreed  to  build  a  water  gristmill  on  the  lot  adjoining  Dela- 
ware river,  for  certain  water  privileges  accorded.  Later  on,  when 
Thomas  Atkinson  sold  to  James  McEvers,  July  21,  1764,  the  prop- 
erty is  described  as  twenty- four  acres  adjoining  Delaware  river, 
"on  which  is  lately  errected  a  water  gristmill  and  sawmill  with  all 
their  members  and  appurtenances." 

The  ferry  and  the  mills  of  this  vicinity  grew  in  fame  and  im- 
portance. Benjamin  Parry,  an  influential  and  progressive  citi- 
zen, the  builder  of  the  Parry  homestead  in  1784,  had  located  here. 
He  was  born  March  1,  1757,  and  was  a  son  of  John  Parry  of 
Moreland  Manor  and  his  wife,  Margaret,  daughter  of  Derrick 
Tyson,  and  granddaughter,  Reiner  Tyson.  John  Parry  built  the 
first  mill  near  Willow  Grove  in  1731.  He  was  a  son  of  Thomas 
and  Jane  Parry,  the  former  born  in  Caernarvonshire,  Wales,  in 
1680,  came  to  Pennsylvania  when  a  very  young  man.  He  died  in 
1751.  He  was  a  part  owner  of  mills  on  the  New  Jersey  side  of 
the  Delaware,  known  as  the  Prime  Hope  Mills.  What  is  now 
known  as  New  Hope  was  then  called  Coryell's  Ferry.  Benjamin 
Parry  married  Jane  Paxson,  daughter  of  Oliver  and  Ruth  (Wat- 
son) Paxson,  and  four  children  were  born  to  them,  namely,  Oliver 
Paxson,  born  Dec.  20,  1794,  Ruth,  born  Jan.  4,  1797,  Jane,  born 
Aug.  27,  1799,  and  Margaret,  born  Dec.  7,  1804.  Benjamin 
Parry  became  proprietor  of  a  flour,  linseed  oil,  and  sawmill  at 
Coryell's  Ferry,  Pa.    One  night  in  the  year  of  1790,  all  three  mills 


THE   OLD    HEATH    MILL   AND   ITS   EARLY   OWNERS  535 

were  burned  to  the  ground.  The  flour  and  sawmill  were  both  re- 
built, and  were  probably  on  the  site  of  the  mills  built  by  the  At- 
kinsons as  the  mill  on  this  site  has  long  been  known  as  Parry's 
mill.  As  the  Amwell,  N.  J.,  mills  across  the  river,  owned  by 
Benjamin  Parry  and  his  brother,  David  Parry,  were  called  the 
"Prime  Hope  Mills"  it  was  determined  that  the  new  mills  should 
be  called  "New  Hope."  From  the  name  of  these  new  mills  came 
the  present  name  of  the  town.  As  a  mill  town  with  the  superb 
flow  of  water  from  Great  Spring,  estimated  to  amount  to  3,000,000 
gallons  in  twenty-four  hours,  and  the  lesser  tributaries,  it  became 
unique.  William  Maris,  an  enterprising  man  came  to  New  Hope 
about  the  year  of  1812,  or  before,  and  built  a  number  of  resi- 
dences, such  as  the  original  part  of  Springdale,  more  commonly 
known  as  the  Huffnagel  house,  the  "Cintra  House"  of  New  Hope 
still  standing,  the  brick  hotel  and  the  four  story  cotton  spinning 
and  weaving  mill  adjacent  to  the  Heath  mill.  By  1809,  when  the 
project  to  build  a  bridge  across  the  Delaware  was  undertaken, 
New  Hope  could  boast  an  unusual  number  of  mills,  as  indicated 
in  the  following  letter  from  Samuel  D.  Ingham,  a  resident  of  Sole- 
bury  and  one  time  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  President 
Jackson,  to  John  Todd,  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  State 
Legislature,  the  original  of  which  is  owned  by  Colonel  Henry  D. 
Paxson  of  Holicong : 

Great   Spring,    March   6,    1809. 
Dear  Sir: — 

I  beg  leave  to  introduce  to  your  acquaintance  my  friend,  Mr.  Benja- 
min Parry.  He  is  the  bearer  of  petitions  from  a  number  of  reputable 
inhabitants  from  this  quarter  for  a  law  to  incorporate  a  company  to 
erect  a  toll  bridge  across  the  Delaware  at  Newhope  or  Coryell's  Ferry. 
We  are  of  opinion  that  a  work  of  this  kind  may  be  effected  without  any 
difficulty.  The  numerous  mills  in  the  vicinity  of  the  place  will  keep 
up  a  constant  intercourse,  which  in  our  opinion  will  amply  justify  the 
undertaking.  There  are  no  less  than  8  run  of  grist  Mill  stones.  7  saw- 
mills, 2  oilmills,  a  papermill,  a  fueling  mill,  besides  two  pairs  of  wool 
carding  machines  and  a  woolen  factory  now  erecting,  all  within  two 
miles  of  ferry  and  on  or  near  the  road  leading  to  it.  In  addition  to  this 
are  two  flourishing  villages  on  the  banks  of  the  river  and  a  daily  stage 
passing  between  Philadelphia  and  New  York. 

You  have  no  doubt  observed  a  similar  supplication  for  Mitchell's 
Ferry,  which  petition  I  have  signed,  and  we  wish  it  to  be  distinctly 
understood  that  this  application  is  not  in  opposition  to  that,  but  en- 
tirely independent  of  it.     If  the  people  interested  in  that  place  and  their 


536  THE  DATING  OF  OLD   HOUSES 

friends  are  willing  to  build  a  bridge,  I  see  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  be  permitted  to  do  so.  We  therefore  do  not  ask  the  privilege  to 
their  exclusion,  and  should  the  law  be  granted  to  both,  we  shall  pro- 
gress with  the  work,  whether  they  do  or  not.  You  will  readily  pre- 
ceive  the  advantages  to  be  derived  to  the  numerous  establishments  above 
mentioned  and  through  them  to  the  public,  by  the  erection  of  bridge 
across  the  river  at  Newhope,  and  the  extensive  aid  which  it  would  re- 
ceive from  the  surplus  wealth  of  interested  people  near  the  place,  be- 
sides that  expected  from  the  stage  proprietors,  and  others  interested  on 
the  road  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York.  If  you  should  think  well  of 
our  application,  your  aid  in  passing  the  law  will  be  gratefully  con- 
sidered by  your  friend  and  humble  servant. 

SAM'L  D.   INGHAM. 
John  Todd,  Esqr., 

Member  of   H.    Representatives, 
Lancaster. 


The  Dating  of  Old  Houses. 

BY  HENRY  C.    MERCER,   SC.D.,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(New  Hope  Meeting,  October  13,  1923. 

THE  following  observations  are  based  upon  notes  taken  upon 
the  recent  examination  of  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  old 
houses  in  Bucks  county  and  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania, 
built  in  the  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries,  and  it 
seems  probable  that  the  conclusions  apply  not  only  to  old  dwell- 
ings in  Pennsylvania,  but  also  to  those  in  New  York,  New  Eng- 
land, and  the  Southern  states,  where  the  same  builders'  material, 
carpenters'  methods,  tools  and  hardware  were  used  during  the 
period  in  question. 

The  conclusions  are  as  follows :  that  old  houses  may  be  dated 
within  reasonable  limits  by  (1)  the  nails  used;  (2)  the  hinges; 
(3)  the  door  panels;  (4)  the  wrought-iron  thumb-latches;  (5) 
the  Norfolk  latches;  (6)  the  cast-iron  thumb-latches;  (7)  the 
wood-screws;  and  (8)  the  sawed  laths. 

WROUGHT    NAILS. 

Handmade  (wrought)  nails  (Fig.  1),  of  soft  malleable  iron, 
with  rectangular  shanks,  drawn  by  hammer  blows  to  a  point  and 


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THE  DATING  OF  OLD  HOUSES  537 

with  clearly  hammer-marked  heads,  were  from  time  immemorial, 
universally  used  in  house  building,  until  about  1800  (in  Phila- 
delphia, 1797)  when  cut  nails  (Fig.  2),  because  of  their  much 
greater  cheapness,  everywhere  immediately  superseded  them. 
Therefore,  where  the  original  nails  of  a  house  are  wrought  (see 
Fig.  1),  the  house  dates  before  about  1800;  or,  where  cut,  vice 
versa,  after  that  date.^ 

All  the  evidence  examined  establishes  this  fact,  with  the  fol- 
lowing exceptions;  namely,  that  long  after  1800,  wrought  nails, 
to  stand  the  jar,  and  because  they  would  clench,  continued  to  be 
used  in  the  facings  of  window  shutters;  in  the  battens  of  doors; 
in  the  overlap  of  boards  (old  style)  in  lathed  room  partitions;  or 
on  door  latches,  etc.,  until  about  1850.  But  these  exceptions  are 
not  typical  of  the  nails  used  to  build  houses  after  1800.  Nails 
used  at  the  time  a  house  was  built  are  nearly  always  to  be  found 
in  the  garret  floors. 

The  wrought  nail  (Fig.  1),  no  matter  what  its  size,  as  generally 
used  in  house  construction,  is  easily  distinguished  from  the  ma- 
chine-made nails,  called  cut  nails  (Figs.  2  and  3),  above  referred 
to,  and  described  later.  It  was  made  from  rectangular  strips  of 
malleable  iron,  several  feet  long,  and  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
thick,  called  nail  rods,  which  were  furnished  to  the  blacksmith  or 
nailer,  who,  holding  one  of  them  in  one  hand,  heated  its  end  in 
his  forge,  and  then,  on  the  anvil,  pointed  it  with  the  hammer  on 

1  Later  evidence  may  show  that  cut  nails  came  into  general  use  in  New 
England  two  or  three  years  earlier  than  in  Pennsylvania.  Knight's  American 
Mechanical  Dictionary  (cf.  "Nail  Making  Machine')  says  that  Jeremiah 
Wilkinson  of  Cumberland,  Rhode  Island,  about  1775,  cut  tacks  from  plates 
of  sheet  metal  and  afterwards  (date  not  given)  made  nails  also;  and  that 
Ezekiel  Reed  of  Burlington,  Mass.,  invented  a  machine  for  cutting  nails  from 
the  plate  in  1786.  J.  L.  Bishop's  History  of  American  Manuffactures  says 
that  Jacob  Perkins  of  Newburyport,  Mass.,  invented  in  1790,  a  machine  for 
making  cut  nails  and  patented  "a  machine  to  cut  and  head  nails  at  a  single 
operation''  in  1795.  Bishop  also  speaks,  without  definite  dates,  of  Thomas 
Odiorne  and  Jesse  Reed  as  early  cut-nail  inventors.  The  Essex  Institute,  at 
Salem,  Mass.,  exhibits  a  model  of  Nathan  Read's  machine  for  cutting  and 
heading  nails  at  a  single  operation  patented  by  him  on  January  8,  1798. 

Unfortunately,  the  very  important  records  of  the  United  States  Patent 
Office,  between  1791  and  1836.  including  the  patents  and  drawings,  have  been 
destroyed  by  fire,  leaving  only  a  bare  dated  list  of  the  issues,  often  lacking 
the  locality  of  the  patentee.     They  show  cut-nail  patents  issued  as   follows : 

For  a  Nail-Cutting  Machine.  Omitting  localities  of  natentees : — J.  Peer- 
son,  March  23,  1794;  J.  Perkins,  January  16,  1795;  A.  Whittemore,  Novem- 
ber 19,   1796. 

Nail-Heading  Machine.  J.  Byington,  December  23,  1796  ;  J.  Frost.  De- 
cember  23,    1796. 

Nail-Heading  and  Cutting  Machine.  L.  Garritson,  November  16,  1796  ; 
G.  Chandlee,  December  12,  1796;  J.  Kersey,  February  24,  1797;  J.  Nevlll, 
August  12,  1797  ;  J.  Spence,  February  16,  1797  ;  N.  Read,  January  8,  1798. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  these  patents  were  granted,  the  evidence  of 
the  nails  themselves,  and  the  notes  quoted  later,  on  N.  Read's  (179B)  ma- 
chine from  Bentley  s  Diary,  and  from  Whitaker's  Narrative,  show  that  the 
last  two  kinds  of  machines  were  not  efficient  until  about  1817  to  1820. 


538  THE  DATING   OF   OLD   HOUSES 

all  four  sides.  Next,  he  partly  cut  it,  above  the  point,  on  the 
"hardy,"  with  a  hammer  blow,  and  then,  inserting  the  hot  point 
into  the  swage  hole,  he  broke  off  the  rod  and  hammered  the  pro- 
jecting end  so  as  to  spread  it  around  the  top  of  the  hole;  after 
which,  the  cooling,  shrunken  nail  was  easily  knocked  out  of  the 
orifice. 

Wrought  nails,  as  free-hand  forged  products  (Fig.  1),  vary 
greatly  in  style  and  shape,  but  the  evidence  examined  has  not  as 
yet  furnished  any  definite  date  for  any  of  their  variations. 

CUT    NAILS   AFTER    180O. 

The  far  more  easily  made  cut  nail  (Figs.  2  &  3),  as  the  evidence 
clearly  shows,  consists  of  a  rectangular,  tapering  shank  of  iron, 
not  hammered  into  a  point  by  hand,  but  tapered,  by  a  single  cut, 
across  a  plate  of  iron.  The  smith  was  here  furnished,  not  with  a 
nail  rod,  but  with  a  strip  of  plate  iron,  several  feet  long,  about  two 
and  a  quarter  inches  wide,  and  often  about  one-eighth  of  an  inch 
thick.  This  strip  he  slid  into  a  cutter,  worked  at  first  by  hand- 
power,  resembling  those  used  by  bookbinders  to  trim  books,  and 
not  here  shown.  This  cutter,  rising  and  falling  rapidly,  clipped 
off  the  end  of  the  iron  plate  crosswise  into  narrow^,  tapering, 
rectangular  slices  or  nails,  whose  length  was  established  by  the 
width,  and  thickness,  by  the  depth  of  the  nail  plate.  The  taper 
of  the  cut  alone,  produced  the  point,  but  not  the  head.  This  was 
made  at  first  by  dropping  the  freshly  cut  piece,  point  downward, 
into  a  slotted  clamp  or  vise,  and  then  spreading  the  larger  pro- 
jecting end  with  a  hammer,  as  in  the  case  of  the  wrought  nail. 

Cut  nails  are  easily  distinguishable  from  wrought  nails  by  the 
following  very  apparent  differences.  Both  have  rectangular 
shanks,  but  the  wrought  nail  (Fig.  1)  tapers  on  all  four  sides; 
the  cut  nail  (Figs.  2  and  3),  on  only  two  opposing  sides ;  the  latter 
nail  being  as  thick  (namely  the  thickness  of  the  nail  plate  from 
which  it  was  cut)  at  the  point  as  at  the  head.  Moreover,  the 
two  cut  sides  of  the  cut  nail  show  very  plainly,  minute  parallel 
striations,  always  absent  on  the  wrought  nail,  marking  the  down 
smear  of  the  cutter. 

The  evidence  conclusively  shows  that  these  cut  nails  every- 
where superseded  the  ancient  wrought  nail  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  namely,  not  long  after  1797,  when  two  cut- 


Fig.    3.— cut-nails — STAMP    HEADED. 

In  general  use  after  c.  1825.  Speciments  removed  from  garret  floors  of  old 
houses  in  Bucks  County,  Pa.  (A)  Grier  House,  near  Dublin,  dated  1827. 
(B)  Sullivan  Tenant  House,  near  Keelersville.  c.  1833.  (C)  Swartzlander- 
Gayman  House,  near  Dovlestown,  dated  1838.  (D)  Bryan  House  (Stanley 
Rapp),  near  Fountainville,  1840.  (E)  Stear  House,  near  Dublin,  dated  1834. 
(F)   L.  Yoder's  Desk,  dated  by  pointed  wood  screews,  after  1846. 


pc'Sffi 


THE  DATING  OF  OLD   HOUSES 


539 


nail  factories  had  been  established  in  Philadelphia,  and,  there- 
fore, if  used  by  the  builder,  they  will  date  a  house  as  having  been 
built  after  that  year. 

HAMMER   HEADED  CUT   NAILS   C.    180O  tO   C.    1825. 

A  Still  further  examination  of  cut  nails,  from  dated  houses, 
shows  that  they  may  be  distinguished  into  two  classes ;  namely 
(a)  those  appearing  between  c.  1800  and  c.  1825.  with  imperfect 


Fig.   4. — CUT  NAILS  AFTER  1796. 

(A)  Rough  sketch  of  cross-section  of  a  cut  nail,  enlargred  and  exaggerated, 
showing  down-smears  of  the  cutter  on  opposite  sides  of  the  shanl<,  proving 
that  the  nail-plate  has  been  turned. 

(B)  Cross-section  of  a  cut  nail,  enlarged,  showing  both  down-smears  of  the 
cutter  on  the  same  side  of  the  shank,  proving  that  the  nail-plate  has  not 
been  ti'.rned. 

or  irregular  heads,  or,  more  particularly,  hammered  heads ;  that 
is,  heads  showing  the  facets  of  more  than  one  hammer  blow 
(Fig.  2),  and  (b)  those  appearing  after  c.  1825,  and  throughout 
the  following  century,  with  stamped  heads,  showing  level  tops 
impressed  by  a  single  blow  or  stamp  (Fig.  3). 

Information  gathered  with  difficulty  from  the  Patent  Office 
records  and  books,  makes  it  probable  (subject  to  correction  by 
dated  nails)  that  in  general,  up  to  1825,  the  nail-cutting  machines 
had  not  been  perfected ;  in  other  words,  that  while  after  1825. 
nail  machinery  produced  cut  nails  at  a  single  operation,  before 
that  time,  two  machines,  run  by  handpower,  but  not  yet  by  steam, 
nor  even  by  water,  one  to  cut,  as  described  above,  and  another, 
probably  nothing  more  than  a  special  vise  to  hold  the  shank 
while  hand-hammering  the  head,  were  used  in  the  manufacture 
of  cut  nails. 

The  hand-cranked  machine,   for  cutting  and  heading  nails  at 


540  THE  DATING  OF  OLD   HOUSES 

one  operation,  patented  by  Nathan  Read  of  Salem,  Mass.,  in 
1798  (See  model  at  Essex  Institute,  Salem,  Mass.),  was  not  a 
success.  Neither  were  any  of  the  other  "cutting  and  heading" 
machines,  or  simple  "heading"  machines,  in  existence  or  patented 
at  that  time,  as  is  shown  by  the  evidence  of  the  nails  themselves, 
and  further  in  the  Diary  of  Rev.  William  Bentley,  who  visited 
Read's  nail  works  in  1810  (See  Essex  Institute  Historical  Col- 
lections, April,  1918,  page  113),  and  found  that  the  workmen 
were  then  heading  nails  in  the  only  way  thus  far  successful, 
namely,  by  hand,  "as  it  is  found  heading  is  done  better  by  hand 
than  by  any  machine  as  yet  invented  both  as  to  time  and  good- 
ness of  execution." 

Joseph  Whitaker  (See  his  manuscript  diary  in  the  library  of  the 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society)  was  also  thus  making  cut  nails 
in  Philadelphia,  from  1809  to  1816-20,  by  a  double  operation; 
namely,  cutting  the  plates  with  a  hand-cranked  machine  and 
afterwards  hammer-heading  the  shanks  held  in  a  clamp  worked 
by  a  foot  lever. 

It  further  appears,  that,  at  first,  since  the  knife  of  the  cutting 
machine  was  set  diagonally  so  as  to  cross-cut  the  nail-plate  into 
a  tapered  slice,  the  workmen  had  to  turn  the  plate  upside  down  at 
each  stroke,  so  as  to  continue  the  taper  by  reversing  the  cut ; 
and  the  very  earliest  cut  nails  (1800  to  c.  1810)  prove  this  fact 
by  the  down  smear  of  the  knife,  round-edged  above  and  sharp  be- 
low, being  reversed  on  the  two  opposing  cut  sides  of  the  nail 
shank  (See  Fig.  4  A).  They  also  show,  that  very  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  this  troublesome  turning  of  the  nail-plate  was 
superseded  by  wriggling  or  staggering  the  blade  of  the  cutter  dur- 
ing the  operation,  so  as  to  reverse  the  taper  at  each  stroke  with- 
out turning  the  nail-plate,  as  shown  in  the  cross  section  of  Fig.  4B. 

At  first,  also,  in  order  to  dispense  with  the  difficulty  of  the 
usual  heading,  angle-headed  (L  headed)  and  headless  nails  called 
"brads"  (See  Fig.  5),  were  made.  But  as  these  latter  continued 
in  use  for  certain  purposes  (often  for  floors)  until  long  after  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  their  confused  evidence  should 
here  be  thrown  out  of  consideration. 

STAMP-HEADED  NAILS  AFTER  C.    l82^. 

An  examination,  not  only  of  the  records  above  mentioned  but 
also  of  dated  nails,  shows  that  about  the  year  1825,  the  cut-nail 


Pig.    7.— wrought- IROX    DOOR    HINGES.       "HOOK    AND    EYE  '    ALIAS 
"STRAP"    TYPE. 

Used  contemporaneau.sly  with  H  and  HL  wrought  hinges  on  interior  house 
doors,  until  1776,  after  which  they  continue  in  use  on  outer  doors  and  shut- 
ters until  c.  1850-60.  and  on  barn  doors  until  c.  1900.  Siiecimens  in  Museum 
of  Bucks  County  Historical  Society.  (A)  Brucker  House  near  Kellersville, 
showing  spike  hook  with  "rat-tail'  before  1776.  (B)  Slifer  Log  House  near 
Keller's  Church,  snike  hinge  hook  with  untwisted  "rat-tail,"  c.  1750.  (E) 
Yost  House  west  of  Ottsville.  showing  plain  spike  hinge  hook.  (C.  D.  P.  G. ) 
From  the  scrap-iron  heaps  of  Bucks  County  junk  dealers.  (G)  Wicket  Hinge, 
used  on  wickets  opening  in   lai'ge   barn  doors. 


THE  DATING   OF  OLD   HOUSES 


541 


machine,  still  working  by  water-power  rather  than  by  hand  and 
not  yet  by  steam,  had  been  so  perfected  as  to  make  cut  nails  no 
longer  by  two  operations  but  by  a  single  operation  in  one  ma- 
chine, in  which  the  apparatus  cut  the  nail,  instantly  clamped  it 
and,  at  a  single  blow,  stamped  the  head  (See  Fig.  3). 

These  stamped  heads,  at  first  (r.  1825  to  1830)  comparatively 
thin,  lopsided  and  imperfect,  became  more  thick,  square  and 
typically  regular  after  1830  and  are  always  easily  recognizable 
after  about  1840.  But  regardless  of  their  variations,  in  any  case, 
stamp-headed  cut  nails,  if  used  in  constructing  a  house,  reason- 
ably date  it  as  after  about  1825, 

V^ROUGHT-IRON   DOOR   HINGES. 

The  evidence  clearly  shows  that  in  the  Colonial  period  in 
America,  the  common  iron,  house-door  hinges  were  made  always 
of  wrought-iron  until  1776  to  1783,  when  cast-iron  hinges  sud- 
denly and  universally  took  their  place. 

The  old  wrought  hinges  appear  in  two  common  varieties  in  the 
houses  examined ;  namely,  the  so-called  H  or  HL  hinge,  cut  out 
of  heavy  sheet  iron  and  fastened  against  the  face  of  the  door  with 
screws  or  clenched  wrought  nails  (See  Fig.  6),  or  the  "strap"  or 
"hook  and  eye"  hinge  (See  Fig.  7)  ;  namely,  a  long  strap,  bolted 
or  nailed  with  clenched  nails  against  the  door  and  turning  on  a 
hook  or  gudgeon  which  latter  was  either  spiked  into  the  lintel, 


Fig. 


-CAST-IRON  DOOR  HINGES,  BUTT  HINGES. 


After  1775  and  until  the  present  time.  Cast-iron  hinges  were  invented  in 
1775  (Izon  and  Whitehurst,  British  Patent.  October  3,  1775).  At  end  of 
American  Revolution  (1783)  they  immediately  superseded  the  previously  uni- 
versal door  hinge  of  wrought-iron.  The  specimen  here  shown  in  face  and  re- 
verse is  from  a  door  in  late  wing  of  Wenderbelt  House,  near  Wormansville, 
Bucks  County,   Pa.,   c.   1820. 


542  THE  DATIXG  OF  OLD   HOUSES 

or,  where  the  Hntel  was  too  thin  for  spiking,  set  upon  a  plate, 
variously  shaped,  and  sometimes  strengthened  with  a  projection 
or  prop  called  a  "rattail." 

While  the  H  and  HL  hinges  (many  of  which  were  probably 
factory-made  and  imported  from  England)  and  nearly  all  of  the 
strap-hinges,  were  found  plain,  a  few  of  the  latter,  by  no 
means  typical  and  generally  over-exhibited  in  museums,  show 
floriated  decorations. 

It  further  appears  that  hand-made,  wrought-strap  hinges  (still 
common  in  1923  on  barn  doors  in  eastern  Pennsylvania  and  else- 
where), continued  to  be  used  on  outer  house  doors  and  window 
shutters,  long  after  1783,  and  hence,  when  so  found,  should  be 
disregarded  as  proof  of  dates.  But  with  these  exceptions,  the 
evidence  abundantly  shows,  that  where  wrought  hinges  (general- 
ly HL,  more  rarely  strap)  are  found  on  original  i)iuer  house 
doors,  they  date  the  house  as  Colonial,  or  built  before  the  Revo- 
lution. 

CAST-IRON    DOOR    HINGES 

Cast-iron  door  hinges,  called  butt  hinges,  comparatively  small, 
compact,  book-shaped,  mortised  into  the  edges,  not  set  upon  the 
faces  of  the  door,  of  the  common  present  type  (See  Fig.  8),  be- 
cause of  their  superior  cheapness,  came  into  universal  use,  no 
less  suddenly,  though  a  little  earlier,  than  cut  nails.  They  were 
invented  in  England  by  Izon  &  Whitehurst,  and  patented  by 
British  patent  No.  1102,  October  3,  1775,  and  were  at  first  im- 
ported. After  the  interruption  of  British  trade  and  house  build- 
ing by  the  Revolutionary  War,  they  everywhere  superseded  the  old 
wrought  hinges,  about  1784,  after  which  they  appear  without  sig- 
nificant exception,  on  all  the  dated  houses  .examined  by  the  writer. 
Hinges  of  this  shape  and  name,  i.e.  butt  hinges,  of  zvrought-irou 
or  brass,  and  never  of  cast-iron,  had  been  made  before  1775, 
generally  for  closets,  or  furniture,  but  none  were  found  by  the 
writer  on  room  doors,  in  the  houses  examined.  Cast-iron  butt 
hinges  also  show  dififerences  and  improvements  in  construction 
(not  studied  closely)  after  about  1800.  But  regardless  of  these 
variations  and  allowing  for  the  above  noted  survival  of  wrought 
strap  hinges  on  outer  doors  and  shutters,  these  cast  butt  hinges, 


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THE  DATIN'G   OF   OLD   HOUSES  543 

found  upon  the  original  doors  of  houses,  will  date  the  latter  as 
post  Colonial  or  built  after  c.  1776-1783. 

QUIRKED,  OVOLO  DOOR  PANELS.  FROM  C.    1776  TO  C.    1835. 

This  examination  of  old  houses  has  shown  no  more  remark- 
able and  unlooked-for  fact  than  that  the  door  panels,  before  c. 
1776,  if  edged  as  usual  with  mouldings,  always  show  a  plain, 
i.e.  unbeaded  ovolo  or  quarter-round  moulding  on  their  outer 
margin  (See  Fig.  9),  while  immediately  following  the  Revolu- 
tion, after  1783,  these  same  ovolo  mouldings  become  scored  with 
one  or  two  quirks  or  headings  (See  Fig.  10),  or  change  into  the 
ogee. 

It  seems  probable  that  this  observation  will  apply  not  only  to 
door  and  shutter  panels,  but  also  to  wall  and  furniture  panels. 
Nevertheless,  lacking  sufficient  information,  as  yet,  we  here 
limit  it  to  doors  where  it  is  significant  enough. 

More  probably  caused  by  some  technical  change  or  improve- 
ment in  joinery,  not  yet  explained,  than  by  mere  fashion,  this 
sudden,  marked  and  universal  change  in  door  panels  seems  all  the 
more  surprising,  since  beaded  or  quirked  ovolo  and  ogee  mould- 
ings appear  elsewhere  in  the  woodwork  of  old  houses,  as,  for 
instance,  in  cornices  and  the  framework  of  mantels.  Further, 
since  old  carpenters'  books  describe  hand-planes  used  to  produce 
the  latter  mouldings  considerably  before  1776,  it  would  seem  rea- 
sonable to  expect  to  find  some  exceptions  to  this  rule ;  but  the 
evidence  of  the  houses  in  question  shows  none  in  the  region  ex- 
amined, so  that,  subject  to  future  correction,  the  information 
thus  far  gathered  shows  that  hand-made  door  panels  with  plain 
ovolo  frame  work  (See  Fig.  9),  if  part  of  the  original  construc- 
tion, will  at  once  date  a  house  as  Colonial,  or  as  built  before 
c.  1776. 

QUIRKED,  OVOLLO  DOOR  PANELS.  FROM  C.   1 776  TO  C.    1835. 

As  above  stated,  the  evidence  gathered  shows  that  after  c.  1776, 
door  or  shutter  panels,  in  which  the  outer  frame  consists  of  an 
ovolo  moulding,  with  one  or  two  beads  or  quirks  (See  Fig.  10), 
or  an  ogee,  suddenly  and  universally  supersede  the  old  plain 
ovolo  moulding,  described  as  previously  used,  and  continue  in  use 


544  THE  DATING  OF  OLD  HOUSES 

on  doors  and  shutters  until  machine-made  mouldings  take  their 
place  about  1835  (See  Fig.  11). 

In  all  the  old  houses  examined,  no  significant  exceptions  to  this 
rule,  or  survivals  of  old,  plain  ovolo  panels,  during  the  period  in 
question,  have  been  found,  so  that  thus  far,  the  evidence  abundant- 
ly shows  that  the  more  ornate  (i.e.  beaded  or  quirked  ovolo)  door 
panels  described,  if  part  of  the  original  construction  of  a  house, 
will  date  it  as  built  between  c.  1776  and  c.  1835. 

MACHINE-MADE  DOOR   PANELS,   AFTER   C.    1 835. 

Besides  the  two  significant  changes  in  door  panels,  above  noted, 
a  third  change,  later  but  no  less  marked,  took  place  in  their  con- 
struction upon  the  general  introduction  of  wood-working  ma- 
chinery, wood-planing  mills,  etc.,  about  1835. 

Revolutionary  machines,  of  immense  importance,  to  plane 
boards,  make  mouldings  and  otherwise  work  wood,  had  been  in- 
vented in  England  by  General  Bentham,  just  before  1800  (See 
Knight's  American  Mechanical  Dictionary)  and  no  doubt  were 
introduced  into  the  United  States  and  used  about  Boston,  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  etc.,  between  1790  and  1835.  Hence,  very 
early  machine-made  door  panels  may  be  found  later,  in  these  and 
other  old  American  cities,  to  prove  the  fact.  But,  in  any  case, 
these  woodworking  machines  would  have  been  run  very  restrict- 
edly  by  water-power  and  not  by  steam,  and  the  evidence  shows 
that  they  were  not  established  or  their  products  used  in  the  Penn- 
sylvania country  until  after  the  general  introduction  of  steam- 
power  which  gave  birth  to  the  modern  factory  about  1835. 

Before  that  time,  in  the  houses  examined,  all  mouldings  on 
door  panels,  whether  of  the  plain  or  beaded  ovolo  or  ogee  type, 
above  described,  were  hand-made  and  appear  as  solid  parts  of 
the  panel,  planed  by  hand-moulding  planes  upon  its  framework ; 
while  after  that  time  they  were  machine-made  and  nailed  on,  as 
loose  strips,  around  the  sunken  outer  marginal  recess  of  each 
panel   (See  Fig.  11). 

It  is  not  necessary  for  this  purpose  to  consider  the  various  sizes 
and  shapes  of  these  machine-made  mouldings,  nor  to  reason  from 
the  fact  that  they  were  introduced,  not  suddenly,  but  gradually, 
that  the  old  styles  of  hand-made  panels  continued  in  use  for  a 
good    while   after   their   introduction.      To    discover   that    loose 


KiG.   11. — MACHINE-MADE  DOOR  PANELS,  AFTER  C.   1835. 

Loose  mouldingrs  nailed  on  the  frame  to  form  the  panels.  Casts  from 
original  doors.  (A)  Dubois  House,  Court  Street,  Doylestown,  dated  1833. 
(B)  Swartzlander  House,  Sandy  Ridge,  dated  1838.  Parlor  door.  (C) 
Chapman-James  House.   Doylestown,   dated    1845.      From    bedroom   door. 


.  — I'l  I|.\'TLI-:SS 


:\v: 


In  universal  use  until  1846  when  they  were  raridly  superseded  by  the 
I^ointed  wood-screw.  (Sloan's  U.  S.  Patent,  Aug.  20,  1846).  (A)  Octagon 
School  House  (Neeld),  near  Morrisville,  Pa.,  c.  1820.  (B)  ".T.  C."  House, 
near  Wormansville  in  Bucks  County,  dated  1784.  (C)  Sullivan  Tenant  House, 
near  Keelersville,  Pa.,  c.  1833.  (D)  Fonthill  Tenant  House  (from  fire-place 
doors).   Doylestown,   Pa.,   c.   1842. 


^  ^^^UHK0^^- 


-WROUGHT   THUMB-LATCHES,    BBAX-SHAPED    AXD 
SWIVEL-LIFT,   UNTIL   C.   1840. 


1  7^n  ""c°"t^V!-^'"''  °^  wrought  thumb-latch.  More  and  more  frequent  after  c 
il^h  1  P^b^V  -^'  '"^l^o'l^^^"^  ^•■o"''  England.  Superseded  by  cast-iron,  earthen 
knob  locks,  etc  c  1840.  Cusp,  shaped  like  a  lima  bean;  Grasp  flat;  Lift, 
^ZTJ>^J^lV^^}l7l^^^-'''^  rivet  perforating  slot  in  graso ;  Catch  "Figure 
Tr,  w^  Jr  ,  ,/u^  Showmg  wrought  nails,  bar  and  staple,  from  original  door 
7  7^  r^.^'"^^^"  "?''^^''-  "^^^  Wornian.sville,  Bucks  County.  Pa.  (old  wing),  c. 
i^/U.  Catch,  contemporary  type  but  not  original  with  this  latch  (B)  Prom 
Rnfkl  n^,?^[  '"  ?7^?>'  House  (old  wine;)  near  Doylestown,  c.  1760-70.  (C). 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society  Museum,   No.   15457       Not  dated 


THE  DATING  OF  OLD  HOUSES  '      545 

Strips  of  moulding  have  been  nailed  on  around  the  sunken  outer 
marginal  recess  of  a  panel  is  sufficient;  that  fact,  where  they  are 
part  of  the  original  house  construction,  establishes  the  date  of  the 
house  as  not  earlier  than  about  1835. 

DOOR   LATCHES   WITH    STRAIGHT    LIFTS,    BEFORE    180O. 

Besides  other  door  fastenings, — namely  box  knob  locks,  wooden 
latches,  brass  latches,  German  lever  latches,  boxed  or  unboxed, 
knob  latches,  etc.,  not  here  described,  many  original  doors  in  old 
houses  still  standing,  show  their  original  wrought-iron  thumb- 
latches,  made  of  malleable  iron  by  blacksmiths  in  five  hammered 
pieces  (Figs.  12  and  13),  i.e.  the  hand  grasp,  an  iron  semi-circle; 
the  lift,  a  lever  with  thumb  press  at  one  end  penetrating  the  door 
to  raise  the  bar ;  the  bar  thus  lifted ;  the  staple  holding  the  bar 
against  the  door  face ;  and  the  catch,  a  "figure  4"  shaped,  notched, 
iron  piece,  spiked  into  the  lintel  of  the  door,  into  which  the 
bar  falls. 

These  old  latches  are  sometimes  decorated  (Fig.  13  B),  but 
commonly  plain  (Fig.  13  A.  C.  D.),  sometimes  home-made  (Fig. 
13)  and  sometimes  probably  imported  (Fig.  12).  Sometimes 
they  show  their  thumb-lifts  fixed  on  swivels  (the  swivel-lift 
latch),  (Fig.  12)  ;  sometimes  they  are  notched  into  holes  (the 
perforated  cusp  latch)  (Fig.  13),  and  sometimes  they  appear 
with,  but  generally  without,  a  knob  or  curl  or  pinch  grasp  on  the 
bar.  As  yet  no  fixed  types  have  been  found  to  which  dates  may 
be  ascribed  beyond  the  following;  namely,  that  the  inner  end  of 
the  lift,  opposite  the  thumb-piece,  commonly  though  not  always 
appears  straight  before  about  1800 ;  after  which  it  more  and  more 
often  shows  the  familiar  downcurve  under  the  bar,  characteristic 
of  modern  cast-iron  latches.  Doors  latched  with  these  straight- 
lift  latches,  some  of  which  are  very  short,  are  sometimes  hard  to 
open,  and  sometimes,  as  if  to  remedy  the  difficulty,  knobs  or  pulls 
appear  on  the  bars  of  latches  of  early  Colonial  date.  But  these 
early  knobed-bars  are  rare  and  it  seems  all  the  more  remarkable 
that  the  very  helpful  down-curve  above  mentioned  should  not  have 
been  more  generally  used  before  1800 ;  nevertheless  curved  latch- 
lifts  have  been  heard  of  by  me,  and  seen  by  Mr.  Frank  K.  Swain, 
in  old  houses  in  England,  and  in  Pennsylvania,  dating  from  the 
earlier  period  in  question,  e.g.,  several  at  the  Community  House, 


546  THE  DATING   OF  OLD   HOUSES 

Bethlehem,  Pa.,  built  about  1742,  and  several  at  the  Letitia  Penn 
House,  Philadelphia,  c.  1682  (doubtful). 

Since  the  writing  and  first  publication  of  this  paper  in  Old 
Time  New  England,  The  Bulletin  of  the  Society  for  the  Preser- 
vation of  New  England  Antiquities,  for  April,  1924,  Mr.  Al- 
bert H.  Sonn  has  seen  a  curved  lift-latch  on  a  library  door  at 
Hadham,  Conn.,  traced  to  an  old  mill  built  about  1740;  one  on  a 
house  at  West  Stockbridge,  Mass.,  and  one  at  Newfane,  Vt.,  be- 
sides finding  more  recently  a  dozen  or  more  in  various  parts  of 
the  eastern  United  States.  Dr.  A.  Bertram  Gilliland  has  also 
found  several  with-  scrolled,  upturned  lifts  in  the  Stebbins  House 
at  Deerfield,  Mass.,  built  in  1772 ;  one  from  the  Pastor  Williams 
House,  Deerfield,  built  in  1770,  and  one  at  Washington's  Head- 
quarters, Newburg,  N.  Y.,  built  before  1800.  If  more  should  ap- 
pear later,  the  present  evidence  shows  that  they  will  continue  to 
occur  as  exceptions,  and  that  in  general  a  curved  latch-lift,  if  part 
of  the  original  construction,  will  date  a  house  after  1800. 

THE   NORFOLK   LATCH,  AFTER    180O. 

The  very  conspicuous  Norfolk  latch  (See  Fig.  14),  is  easily 
distinguished  from  the  wrought  thumb-latches,  in  having  its 
hand-grasp  not  enlarged  at  each  end  into  plates,  or  cvisps,  but 
riveted  upon  a  long,  narrow,  sheetiron  escutcheon.  Though  long 
known  in  England  as  hand-wrought  by  local  blacksmiths,  it  never- 
theless appears  in  the  American  houses  examined,  as  a  factory- 
made  and  not  smith-wrought  product  probably  at  first  imported 
from  England.  Gradually  taking  the  place  about  1820  of  the 
other  forms  of  thumb-latch  and  competing  with  the  knob-latch 
and  the  German  lever  latch  (not  shown  here),  it  rivals,  for  a 
while,  the  newly  invented  earthen  door-knob  with  cast-iron  box, 
until  it  is  generally  superseded  by  the  latter  and  by  Blake's 
patent  cast-iron  thumb-latch  of  1840  (Fig.  15). 

The  evidence  shows  that  these  factory  Norfolk  latches  were 
made  sometimes  with,  and  sometimes  without,  a  knob  on  the  bar 
(Fig.  14)  ;  sometimes,  at  first,  with  a  straight  lift  (A)  and  some- 
times, later,  with  a  curved  lift  (B  and  C),  sometimes,  at  first, 
with  a  spiked  catch  (not  shown  here)  and  sometimes,  later,  with  a 
catch  perforating  or  riveted  upon  a  plate  (C).  But  without  at- 
tempting to  infer  too  much  from  these  variations,   we  may  at 


Fig.   13.— wrought  THUMB-LATCHES,   PERFORATED  CUSP  TYPE, 
UNTIL    C.    1840. 

Lift,  generally  straight,  until  c.  1800,  works  through  hole  in  cusp  with  ad- 
justable prong  (as  here  shown  but  sometimes  otherwise)  to  prevent  its  falling 
out ;  Thumb  press,  flat ;  Cusps  and  Grasp  more  or  less  decorated.  Large 
elaborate  forms  used  on  outer  doors.  Curved  lifts  appear  on  these  latches 
after  1800-1825.  and  rarely  before  1800.  Sometimes  these  wrought  latches 
show  swivel  lifts  (See  Fig.  12).  Specimens,  not  dated,  in  Museum  of  Bucks 
County  Historical  Society,  Doylestown,  Pa.  (A)  Woodman  House,  near 
Yycombe.  (B)  Chittick  House,  near  Gardenville.  (C)  Home  House,  near 
Richlandtown,  c.   1756.      (D)    Eastburn  House,  near  Centre  Hill. 


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THE  DATING   OF  OLD   HOUSES 


547 


least  conclude,  from  the  evidence,  that  the  factory-made  Norfolk 
latch,  if  contemporaneous  with  the  building,  will  date  a  house  be- 
tween 1800  and  1840,  or,  allowing  for  survivals,  1850. 


blare's  cast-iron  thumb-latch,  after  1840. 


Numerous  dated  ex- 
amples found,  show  that 
Blake's  typical  cast-iron 
thumb-latch  (Fig.  15), 
with  circular  catch-plate 
mortised  and  screwed 
into  the  door  lintel,  hol- 
low patent  bar-pivot, 
hollow  staple  guard,  and 
saucer  lift  with  opposite 
down-curve,  patented  by 
United  States  patent  No. 
1704,  July  21,  1840,  first 
came  into  general  use  on 
and  after  that  year. 

It  seems  probable  that 
this  latch  was  preceded 
by  rare  cast-iron  experi- 
ments or  improvements, 
i.  e.  cast-iron  grasps  on 
older  wrought  latches  of 
the  Fig.  12  type,  etc., 
and  was  closely  followed 
by  evasive  copies  or  pat- 
ent infringements.  But 
Blake's  latch  was,  and 
still  is,  (1923)  the  cast- 
iron  latch  par  excellence, 
and  without  concerning 
ourselves  with  earlier 
unpatented  predecessors 
or  variations  of  it  or 
copies  or  patent  infringe- 
ments of  its  very  typical 


FIG.    15.— cast-iron   THUMB-LATCH 
after   1840 

Blake'.s  L".  S.  Patent,  No.  1704,  July  21, 
1840.  First  patented  cast-iron  door  latch. 
Specimen  shown  set  with  its  original  point- 
less wood  screws.  From  parlour  door  of 
Frayley-Trauger  House,  Pipersville,  Bucks 
Co.,   Pa.,  built   1846. 

catch  or  staple,  this  latch,  when  com- 


548  THE  DATING  OF  OLD   HOUSES 

plete  and  original,   as   the   evidence   clearly   shows,   will   date   a 
house  as  built  after  1840. 

POINTLESS   WOOD-SCREWS   BEFORE,  1 846. 

The  unmistabable  pointed  wood  screw,  now  universally  used, 
was  patented  by  United  States  patent  No.  4704,  August  20,  1846, 
before  which  time,  all  wood  screws  in  general  use,  unless  pointed 
by  hand-filing,  were  blunt  (Fig.  16). 

Because  these  pointless  screws  would  not  start  by  driving  into 
the  wood,  or  penetrate,  except  by  a  previous  gimlet  hole,  the 
pointed  wood-screw  suddenly  and  universally  superseded  them. 
Therefore,  the  wood-screw  if  pointless  and  original,  will  date  a 
house  before  1846;  if  pointed,  after  that  date. 

These  facts,  marking  the  end  of  the  old  house  building  period, 
though  only  applicable  to  the  very  latest  buildings,  are  neverthe- 
less important,  since  they  may  help  to  detect  wholesale  restora- 
tions or  additions  and  show  when  kitchen  fire-place  doors  stopped 
open-fire  cooking,  or  where  old  latches,  hinges,  or  doors  have 
been  shifted  out  of  time  or  place. 

SAWED   LATHS,   AFTER    C.    1825   TO    1835. 

Sawed  laths  (Fig.  17  A),  i.e.  thin  strips  of  machine-sawed 
wood,  about  three  feet  long,  by  two  inches  wide,  by  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  thick,  as  keys  for  interior  wall  furring  and  partition 
plastering,  first  appear  about  1825  to  1835.  Though  sawed,  they 
were  not  produced  by  the  water-run,  vertical-frame  saw  of  the 
old  saw  mills,  but  were  first  made  by  circular  saivs,  about  1825 
to  1835,  on  the  general  introduction  of  the  circular  saw,  before 
which  time,  riven  laths,  i.e.  hand-split  with  a  frow  and  mallet, 
were  invariably  used  (See  Fig.  17  B),  and  no  such  thing  as  a 
sawed  lath  existed. 

Riven  laths  were  occasionally  made  and  used  for  some  time 
after  the  introduction  of  sawed  laths,  and  therefore  will  not 
date  a  house  as  built  before  1825,  while  sawed  laths  will,  if 
original,  date  it  as  built  after  that  time. 

CONCLUSIONS. 

In  conclusion,  it  should  be  said  in  general,  that  in  collecting 
and  attempting  to  estimate  the  above  facts,  it  soon  became  certain 
that  very  few  of  the  old  houses  examined  had  escaped  alterations 


< 


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t-2 « 4'  ^-^ 


THE  DATING  OF  OLD   HOUSES  549 

and  repairs  and  therefore,  unless  the  details  above  noted  could 
be  proved  in  each  case  to  be  part  of  the  original  construction, 
their  evidence  only  led  to  error  and  confusion.  With  this  reser- 
vation, reasonable  certainty  was  always  sought  for  and  often 
found. 

Very  few  houses  appeared  to  have  been  raised  or  broadened. 
Therefore  their  original  garret  floors  remained  intact  and  the 
conclusive  evidence  of  nails  used  therein,  was  easiest  reached. 
When  rarely,  because  of  new  floors,  or  L  headed  cut  nails,  this 
failed,  we  generally  found  it  on  staircases,  in  wash-boards  or  else- 
where in  the  house,  and  when,  at  times,  this  evidence  seemed 
contradictory,  some  further  fact,  family  tradition  or  historical 
record,  showed  that  old  doors  or  hinges,  screws,  or  latches,  had 
been  inserted  out  of  date  into  new  houses,  or  vice  versa. 

Doors  appeared  original  if  set  in  original  partitions ;  if  frequent- 
ly duplicated;  if  not  cut  down  on  their  margins;  and  if  with  their 
hinges  not  covering  old  mortise  nail  or  screw  holes  or  outlines  of 
removed  hinges.  Door  panels ;  if  on  original  doors ;  if  frequent- 
ly repeated  or  matching  shutter  panels.  Latches ;  if  often  dupli- 
cated, and  not  betrayed  as  resettings  by  the  marks  of  nail,  screw 
or  lift  holes,  etc.,  or  of  other  door  fastenings.  Pointed  or  point- 
less wood  screws ;  by  their  general  use  or  appearance  with  other- 
wise original  wood  or  iron  work ;  and  sawed  laths ;  by  their 
original  use  in  partitions  or  in  original  furrings  over  rough  un- 
plastered  walls. 

Out  of  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty  houses  examined,  about 
fifty  were  found  dated  by  documentary  evidence,  or  by  date- 
plates  or  wall-stones;  and  the  evidence  of  nails,  woodwork  and 
hardware,  first  studied  in  these  dated  buildings,  always  repeated 
and  never  contradicted  itself  in  the  undated  houses  examined 
later.  As  far  as  this  evidence  goes,  it  is  very  positive;  but  as 
yet,  though  quite  definite  after  the  Revolution,  it  fails  to  fix  any 
subdivisions  of  time  for  the  Colonial  period  (1650  to  1776). 


The  Laux  Family  of  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania. 

BY  HON.  JAMES  B.  LAUX,  XEW  YORK. 

(Doylestown   Meeting,   January   19,    1924.) 

This  paper  is  a  revision  and  augmentation  of  an  address  delivered  at  a 
Laux  family  reunion  held  at  York,  Pa.,  by  Prof.  Hiram  Rittenhouse  Loux, 
M.D.,  of  Jefferson  Medical  College,  Philadelphia. 

THAT  branch  of  the  Laux  family  which  I  have  the  honor 
to  represent  here  today,  was  founded  by  our  colonial  an- 
cestor, Johan  Peter  Laux,  who  landed  at  Philadelphia,  in 
the  good  ship  "Patience,"  commanded  by  John  Brown,  master, 
on  the  16th  day  of  September.  1748,  presumably  the  same  day 
on  which  he  in  company  with  his  fellow  passengers  took  the 
oath  of  allegiance,  for  it  was  customary  immediately  after  the 
landing  of  the  early  German,  Swiss  and  French  settlers  to  take 
them  en  masse  to  the  courthouse  in  Philadelphia,  or  to  the  official 
residence  of  the  magistrate  whose  duty  it  was  to  administer  the 
oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain,  and  to  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania.  This  oath  was  not  re- 
quired previous  to  1727,  but  owing  to  the  great  number  of  Ger- 
mans and  Swiss  who  had  already  settled  in  the  Province,  the  fear 
was  entertained  by  the  English  authorities  that  if  future  alien 
emigrants  were  permitted  to  land  without  exacting  an  oath  of 
allegiance,  there  would  be  grave  danger  of  an  invasion  from  the 
continent  of  Europe,  that  would  in  time  create  a  powerful  new 
Germany  in  America,  and  rob  England  of  her  colonies,  even  as 
the  Saxons,  who  were  invited  by  the  early  Britons  to  come  over 
from  Germany  to  help  defend  them  against  the  invasions  of  the 
Picts  and  Scots  of  the  north,  instead  of  returning  to  their  ancient 
home  when  their  mission  was  done,  remained  and  conquered  the 
Britons  in  turn,  thus  laying  the  foundations  for  modern  England. 
The  injustice  and  foolishness  of  such  fears  however  were  soon 
demonstrated  by  the  behavior  of  the  greatly  feared  Germans  and 
Swiss,  who  quickly  became  an  element  of  strength  and  security 
to  the  Province  instead  of  a  menace  and  a  source  of  weakness. 

The  ship  "Patience,"  in  which  our  ancestor  spent  many  weary 
weeks,  sailed  from  the  port  of  Rotterdam,  in  Holland,  from 
which  seaport  almost  all  the  emigrants   from  Germanv,   France 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  551 

and  Switzerland  in  colonial  days  took  passage  for  America.  The 
vast  majority  of  these  came  down  the  River  Rhine  to  Rotterdam 
on  rafts  or  flat  boats,  a  most  interesting  and  picturesque  journey 
undoubtedly,  but  a  sad  one  also  for  it  meant  the  last  glimpse  of 
their  fatherland — an  eternal  farewell  to  the  land  they  loved  so 
greatly  in  spite  of  the  hardships  and  oppressions  that  was  the 
lot  of  so  many  thousands — an  eternal  farewell  in  many  instances 
to  father,  mother,  brothers  and  sisters. 

The  ship  "Patience"  had  on  board  when  she  left  Rotterdam, 
one  hundred  and  twenty-one  male  passengers  above  the  age  of 
sixteen  years,  and  with  the  women  and  children  probably  had  a 
total  passenger  list  of  five  hundred  or  over.  It  is  impossible  at 
the  present  day  with  our  magnificent  floating  palaces  to  form  a 
correct  idea  of  the  misery,  wretched  discomfort  and  inevitable 
sickness  that  resulted  from  the  crowding  of  so  many  human 
beings  into  a  small  sailing  vessel,  barely  a  hundred  feet  in  length 
and  of  less  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  tons  burden.  The  dreaded 
ship-fever  or  typhus,  was  of  frequent  occurence  in  these  crowded 
sailing  vessels,  ocean  charnel  houses,  from  whose  reeking  decks 
old  Neptune  daily  received  his  ghastly  toll  of  the  dead. 

The  establishment  of  the  Lazaretto,  the  colonial  quarantine 
on  the  Delaware  river,  a  few  -miles  below  Philadelphia,  bore 
mournful  testimony  to  the  great  fear  of  this  dreadful  disease 
entertained  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania. 

Perhaps  no  better  account  of  the  perils  encountered  by  our  an- 
cestors in  their  voyages  across  the  Atlantic  can  be  given  than  the 
following  colonial  news  item  in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette  of 
Feb.  8,  1739: 

"On  December  26th,  1738,  a  ship  of  300  tons  was  cast  away  on  Block 
Island.  This  ship  sailed  from  Rotterdam  in  August  1738,  last  from 
Cowes.  John  Wanton,  the  Governor  of  Rhode  Island,  sent  Mr.  Peter 
Bouse  and  others  from  Newport  to  Block  Island  to  see  how  matters  were. 

On  the  19th  of  January,  1739,  these  returned  to  Newport,  Rhode  Is- 
land, reporting  that  the  ship  was  commanded  by  George  Long;  that 
he  died  on  the  inward  passage  and  that  the  mate  then  took  charge  of 
the  ship,  which  had  sailed  from  Rotterdam  with  400  Palatines,  destined 
for  Philadelphia;  that  an  exceedingly  malignant  fever  and  flux  had 
prevailed  among  them,  only  105  landing  at  Block  Island,  and  that  by 
death  the  number  had  been  reduced  to  90. 

The  chief  reason  alleged  for  this  great  mortality  was  the  bad  condi- 
tion of  the  water  taken  in  at  Rotterdam.     It  was   filled  in  casks  that 


552  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

before  had  contained  white  and  red  wine.    The  greater  part  of  the  goods 
of  the  Palatines  was  lost." 

The  ship  "Patience"  touched  at  the  port  of  Cowes  (famous 
at  the  present  day  as  a  bathing  and  yachting  resort,  and  as  a 
summer  residence  of  the  Sovereigns  of  England  on  the  north 
coast  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  about  eleven  miles  distant  from  the 
ports  of  Portsmouth  and  Southampton,  on  the  southern  coast  of 
England),  following  the  custom  of  sailing  vessels  plying  between 
Holland  and  America,  who  stopped  at  some  English  or  Scotch 
port,  sometimes  for  cargoes  of  freight,  but  more  frequently  for 
supplies  of  water  and  provisions  for  the  long  voyage  ahead,  and 
also  because  it  was  necessary  to  obtain  clearance  papers  at  some 
English  port,  without  which  a  ship  was  not  allowed  to  sail. 
Most  of  the  ships  carrying  German  and  Swiss  emigrants  were 
owned  by  English  capitalists  and  commanded  by  English  or 
Scotch  captains  or  masters,  who  gained  an  odious  reputation  for 
avarice  and  brutality. 

These  bits  of  information  though  few  in  number  concerning 
the  vessel  in  which  our  ancestor,  Peter  Laux,  ventured  on  his 
voyage  across  the  wide  ocean  to  his  new  home  in  America,  I  feel 
must  be  of  some  interest  to  us,  his  descendants,  for  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  scenes  upon  which  his  eyes  rested  from  the  time 
he  left  his  home  in  the  fertile  valley  of  the  Rhine.  We  gain 
some  idea,  however  faint,  of  the  trials  and  sufferings  that  were 
sure  accompaniments  of  a  sea  voyage  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
three  years  ago,  to  which  he  was  subjected,  and  some  idea  of 
his  first  experience  on  landing  at  Philadelphia. 

The  "Patience,"  the  ship  in  which  he  came  to  America,  was 
well  named,  for  it  recalls  the  phrase  coined  by  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics of  France,  who  marvelled  at  the  patience  and  long-suffering 
of  the  Huguenots  under  their  fearful  trials  and  persecutions. 
^'La  patience  des  Huguenots"  became  a  favorite  expression  when 
speaking  of  some  Frenchman's  dogged  endurance,  eventually  be- 
coming a  proverb.  It  required  "patience"  as  well  as  courage  to 
cross  the  Atlantic  in  1748,  when  some  times  six  months  were 
spent  in  making  the  passage. 

Peter  Laux  was  born  in  1726,  as  the  ship's  register  states, 
and  which  was  further  proven  by  the  inscription  on  his  tomb- 
stone, but  which  now  is  almost  obliterated.    He  was  of  Huguenot 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTV  553 

descent,  and  was  born  in  Hesse  Nassau,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Miinster,  a  small  dorf  or  village  where  his  Huguenot  ancestor 
had  settled  on  being  exiled  from  France  after  the  murder  of 
Henry  IV,  which  occurred  at  Paris,  in  the  year  1610.  The  Laux 
family  originated  in  the  old  French  province  of  Beam  in  the 
south  of  France  where  for  centuries  it  was  prominent  and  its 
members  devoted  followers  of  Henry  IV  during  the  Reformation.^ 

There  was  in  the  possession  of  the  late  Squire  John  A.  Loux 
of  Bucks  County,  for  more  than  forty  years  a  Justice  of  the 
Peace,  a  very  worthy  member  of  our  branch  of  the  family,  an 
ancient  passport  issued  to  Friederich  Jacob  Laux,  dated  January 
4,  1772,  at  Miinster,  Hesse  Nassau,  stating  that  he  was  born 
Dec.  16,  1721.  It  is  supposed  that  he  was  an  elder  brother  of 
Peter  Laux.  He  arrived  in  Philadelphia,  December  3,  1772,  and 
at  once  journeyed  to  the  homes  of  his  kindred  in  Bucks  county, 
where  he  died  January  5,  1790,  and  was  buried  in  the  old  Tohickon 
church  burial  ground,  the  last  resting  place  of  many  generations 
of  our  race  as  their  simple  tombstones  relate.  This  ancient  pass- 
port corroborates  the  tradition  that  existed  concerning  the  Ger- 
man home  of  our  exiled  French  Huguenot  forefathers,  and 
which  is  also  strengthened  by  the  church  records  in  West  Camp, 
Schoharie  and  the  Mohawk  Valley  in  New  York,  that  give  the 
names  of  the  municipalities  in  Germany  from  which  the  members 
of  the  family  in  New  York  state  came :  Epstein  and  Runkel  in 
Hesse  Darmstadt,  not  far  from  Miinster  in  Hesse  Nassau.-  These 
church  records  go  back  as  far  as  1710,  and  are  confirmatory  of 
the  traditions  handed  down  in  Bucks  county. 

The  Hesses  were  favorite  asylumns  of  safety  for  the  persecuted 
Huguenots  of  France  and  many  hundreds  made  their  home  here 
before  and  after  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1685 
and  in  a  few  generations  became  absorbed  by  the  German  pop- 
ulation.-"^ 

This  "passport,"  long  believed  to  be  a  document  issued  by  the 
Landgrave  of  Hesse  Nassau  giving  his  consent  to  the  emigration 
of  Friederich  Jacob  Laux  to  America,  for  many  years  lost  sight 

1  See  the  D'Hozier  Collection  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  In  Paris  for  du 
Laux  family  history,  and  an  old  map  of  France  on  which  the  ancient  village 
of  Laux  is  shown,  photostat  copy  of  which  is  in  the  "Laux  Collection'  in  the 
possession  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society. 

2  See  Map  of  Hesse  Nassau  in  the  "Laux  Collection." 

3  See  Poole's  "Huguenots  of  the  Dispersion"  and  "Weiss'  History  of  the 
French  Protestant  Refugees  since  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes." 


554  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

of,  but  thanks  to  the  thoughtful  suggestion  of  Dr.  Fackenthal,  re- 
cently found  by  Miss  Ida  M.  Bennett  of  East  Stroudsburg,  in 
Monroe  County,  a  granddaughter  of  Squire  Loux,  is  a  paper  of 
much  greater  importance  as  shown  in  the  following  translation 
of  its  contents  by  the  Rev.  William  J.  Hinke,  D.D.,  of  the  Au- 
burn (X.  Y.)  Theological  Seminary. 

It  is  in  fact,  a  letter  of  dismissal  and  commendation  from  the 
pastor  of  the  Reformed  Church  at  Miinster,  with  an  extract 
from  the  Church  records  giving  the  birth-dates  of  Friederich 
Jacob  Laux  and  those  of  his  wife  and  children,  a  most  interest- 
ing and  precious  family  paper. 

The  document  clears  up  a  misleading  entry  in  the  Tohickon 
Church  records,  recently  published.  On  page  290  is  recorded  the 
death  of  a  Julian  E.  Laux  aged  82  years.  10  months  and  10  days, 
who  was  buried  Jan.  26th,  1833.  This  should  read :  Juliana,  and 
not  the  masculine  "Julian"  as  is  evident  from  a  comparison  with 
the  Church  records  of  Miinster  where  Juhana's  birth  is  recorded, 
which  coincides  exactly  with  the  Tohickon  record  in  point  of  age 
by  computation. 

It  serves  also  as  a  means  of  identifying  the  "widow  Laux", 
buried  Sept.  24th,  1813,  aged  87  years,  carelessly  entered  on  the 
Tohickon  records.  By  comparison  and  computation  again  it  is 
evident  that  she  was  born  in  1726  and  W'ithovit  doubt  the  widow 
of  Friederich  Jacob  Laux,  who  died  Jan.  5,  1790 : 

LETTER  OF  DISMISSAL  OF  FREDERICK  JACOB   LAUX 
AND  FAMILY 

June  4,  1772. 

L(ectori)  B(enevolo)  S(alutem)  i.  e.    Greeting  to  the  Kind  Reader. 
Extract  from  Church  Protocol  of  Weyer. 

Frederick  Jacob  Laux  of  Weyer,  was  born  Dec.  16,  1721.  His  wife,. 
Maria  Margaret,  daughter  of  Anna  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Carl  Conradi,  was- 
born  April  19,  1726. 

Their  1st  daughter  Juliana  Elizabeth,  b.  March  14,  1750. 

Their  2nd  daughter  Maria  Catharine,  b.  Jan.  15,  1754. 

Their  3rd  daughter  Anna  Sophia,  b.  Febr.  22,  1763. 

Their  4th  daughter  Catharine  Sophia,  b.  Febr.  6,  1766. 

We  also  attest  herewith  that  the  person  presenting  this  letter, 
Frederick  Jacob  Laux,  of  Weyer,  together  with  his  wife  and  the  above 
mentioned  three  daughters,  have  confessed  membership  in  our  Evangeli- 
cal Reformed  Church.  For  this  reason  these  members,  now  dismissed 
by  us,  if  they  shall  continue  to  remain  true  to  the  doctrine  of  faith  and; 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  555 

piety,  and  will  further  lead  a  Christian  life,  can  be  admitted  to  partici- 
pate elsewhere  in  the  holy  communion.  To  that  end,  we  faithfully 
commend  them  to  our  brethren  in  the  faith  in  other  places  to  receive 
them  into  their  Christian  fellowship,  and  especially  do  we  commend 
them  to  the  grace  of  God. 
Muenster,  June  4,  1772. 

In   the    name    of   the   presbytery, 
J.    A.    Schafer,    Reformed    pastor 
(SEAL)  of  the  parish  Muenster  of  Weyer. 

Michael  Dick,  elder. 

Like  the  vast  majority  of  the  first  settlers  in  America,  our 
ancestor,  Peter  Laux,  looked  to  the  land,  the  soil,  on  which  to 
make  a  livelihood,  for  that  was  the  principal  occupation  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Republic,  even  as  it  is  today.  He  had  come  too 
from  the  Palatinate,  known  to  friend  and  foe  as  the  "Garden 
spot  of  Germany."  There  was  no  room  for  bewigged  and  pow- 
dered dandies  in  ruff  and  lace  to  strut  about  in  the  wilderness  as 
was  done  at  the  settlement  of  Jamestown  in  Virginia,  which  re- 
sulted as  you  all  know  in  starvation.  Life  was  a  serious  busi- 
ness to  men  who  were  strangers  in  a  strange  land,  speaking  an 
alien  tongue,  and  looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  the  authorities. 
The  opportunities  for  professional  employment  were  few,  and 
the  trades  were  the  simplest  and  the  most  essential  to  the  rude 
communities  in  which  the  felling  of  great  forests  to  make  way 
for  the  ploughed  field  was  the  first  and  greatest  problem. 
And  yet  "unpaid  is  the  honour  due  to  the  plough."  Clearings 
had  first  to  be  made  for  the  log  houses  and  barns.  And  so  the 
first  thought  after  landing  at  Philadelphia,  and  taking  the  oath 
of  allegiance  was  the  gaining  possession  of  a  tract  of  land  on 
which  to  build  a  home.  That  meant  a  journey  into  the  primeval 
forests  on  the  outer  edge  of  the  settlements  already  made. 

In  that  early  day  Bucks  county  was  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  fertile  and  desirable  sections  in  which  to  settle.  Its  close 
proximity  to  Philadelphia,  the  principal  city  in  the  Province,  gave 
plantations  in  that  county  a  peculiar  value.  The  accumulation  of 
wealth  required  a  market  in  which  the  surplus  products  of  the 
farm  could  be  sold  for  cash.  The  greater  the  distance  of  a  farm 
from  a  good  market,  the  more  difficult  the  task  to  dispose  of  the 
surplus  products.  It  was  not  long  therefore  before  Peter  Laux 
acquired  a  tract  of  heavily  timbered  land  on  Deep  Run,  in  what 


556  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

.is  now  Bedminster  township,  receiving  title  by  deed  dated  Janu- 
ary 23,  1762,  for  171  acres  and  145  perches,  from  Wilham  Allen 
of  Philadelphia,  one  of  the  largest  landowners  in  Bucks  county, 
and  paying  for  the  same  the  sum  of  £300  15s  9d,  and  further 
obligating  himself  the  "yielding  and  paying  therefor  yearly  for- 
ever the  yearly  rent  of  one  pepper  corn  on  the  sixteenth  day  of 
November  in  every  year  if  the  same  shall  be  demanded" — a 
quaint  survival,  no  doubt,  of  an  ancient  feudal  custom.  The 
pepper  corn  was  a  dried  berry  of  the  black  pepper.  In  those 
days  people  had  to  grind  their  own  pepper  as  is  still  the  custom  in 
some  countries.  In  certain  parts  of  Mexico  for  instance  the 
pepper  grinder  is  a  very  necessary  table  utensil.  We  have  no 
record  that  this  yearly  rent  of  a  pepper  corn  was  ever  demanded 
or  paid.  We  are  reminded  of  this  old  colonial  custom  in  the 
ceremonious  payment  of  a  "red  rose"  by  the  congregation  of 
Zion  Lutheran  Church  at  Mannheim,  in  Lancaster  county  to  the 
heirs  of  the  Baron  von  Stiegel,  which  takes  place  yearly,  early 
in  the  month  of  June,  and  which  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  an 
annual  "Feast  of  Roses"  in  that  community.  The  same  beautiful 
ceremony  is  also  performed  every  year  by  the  congregations  of 
the  Tulpehocken  Reformed  Church  at  Reading,  and  of  the  First 
Reformed  church  at  Lebanon,  Pennsylvania. 

The  deed  given  to  Peter  Laux  for  his  Deep  Run  tract  of 
land  is  recorded  in  the  Recorder  of  Deeds  office  at  Doylestown,  in 
Deed  Book  No.  10  (old  number  C,  Vol  3),  page  533.  The  sup- 
position is  that  the  deed  was  given  when  the  final  payment  was 
made,  the  deed  stating  that  the  land  was  "in  his  actual  possession 
and  seizen,"  agreements  or  contracts  between  the  grantor  and 
grantee  being  held  in  the  meantime.  This  was  a  common  custom, 
even  in  the  case  of  land  grants  from  the  Penn  family,  the 
original  proprietors.  The  patents  for  the  land  surveyed  under 
a  warrant  were  frequently  not  issued  for  long  periods  thereafter, 
sometimes  fifteen  or  twenty  years  elapsing  before  the  patents 
were  finally  granted.  In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  the  pioneer 
settlers  had  first  to  earn  and  save  the  money  wherewith  to  pay 
for  their  plantations. 

Peter  Laux,  when  he  arrived  at  Philadelphia,  was  a  young 
bachelor  of  twenty-two  and  evidently  had  but  little  difficulty  in 
arousing  the  tender  passion  in  the  hearts  of  the  young  maidens 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  557 

whom  he  met,  for  in  1752  we  find  him  the  happy  husband  of  a 
good  wife,  Catarina  by  name,  the  daughter  of  the  prosperous 
planter,  Johannes  Hennz  of  Franconia  township,  Montgomery 
county,  then  part  of  Philadelphia  county,  who  had  come  to 
America  previous  to  1726,  for  we  have  a  record  of  a  purchase  of 
110  acres  of  land  in  Franconia  township  he  had  made  of  one 
William  Neys,  later  spelled  Nice,  under  date  of  January  11, 
1726-7. 

That  Peter  Laux  was  an  upright  and  honorable  man,  as  well  as 
a  good  business  man,  we  have  ample  evidence  of  in  the  will 
made  by  his  father-in-law  on  the  25th  day  of  August,  1756,  in 
which  he  "nominates  and  appoints"  his  "loving  son-in-law 
Peter  Laux"  and  his  "trusty  friend  Peter  Gerhart,  joint  and  sole 
executors"  of  his  estate.  There  was  another  son-in-law,  named 
Leonard  Snider. 

Johannes  Hennz  died  in  the  early  part  of  June,  1757,  his 
widow,  Barbara,  and  seven  children  surviving  him.  His  will 
was  probated  at  the  Register  General's  office  in  Philadelphia,  leav- 
ing an  estate  of  considerable  value,  which  was  sold  and  dis- 
tributed in  1764.  Peter  Laux  prospered  as  his  family  grew  in 
number,  living  the  life  of  an  earnest,  respectable  man  of  sub- 
stance, rearing  his  children  in  a  Christian  manner  as  the  Re- 
formed Church  records  at  Tohickon  inform  us,  for  there  we  have 
the  evidence  of  their  Confirmation  fitting  them  for  the  duties  of 
manhood  and  womanhood,  as  well  as  good  citizenship. 

Peter  and  Catarina  Laux  were  blessed  with  nine  children: 
Barbara,  the  eldest,  born  April  24,  1754;  John,  born  December 
14,  1756;  John  Jacob,  born  March  16,  1759;  John  Peter,  born 
December  19,  1760;  Catharine,  born  June  5,  1763;  Andrew, 
born  November  5,   1768;  John  Adam,  born  October   12,   1771; 

Elizabeth,  born   ;  Alaria  Magdalena,  born 

June  11,  1775. 

An  ancient  custom  brought  from  Europe,  w^as  observed  in  the 
christening  of  the  children  of-  our  ancestor.  Four  of  the  five 
sons  were  named  John,  one,  the  eldest,  christened  simply  as  John, 
and  the  other  three,  John,  in  addition  to  the  name  by  which 
they  were  known  and  called  by  their  parents  and  friends,  and  in 
their  business  relations,  and  which  they  used  in  signing  legal 
documents.     It  is  possible  and  even  likely  that  Andrew  may  also 


558  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

have  been  christened  John.  It  was  the  common  practice  also  in 
those  days  to  christen  all  the  daughters  Maria  or  Mary  in  the 
same  manner  that  the  sons  were  named  John.  It  was  a  very 
ancient  custom,  profoundly  religious,  to  have  the  name  of  the 
beloved  disciple  John  and  the  name  of  Mary,  the  mother  of 
Christ,  part  of  the  Christian  prenomen  of  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  devout  church  people.  It  was  a  common  practice  also  to 
christen  the  sons  of  Catholics  in  France  with  the  feminine  Marie 
as  the  first  of  the  Christian  or  baptismal  names. 

Peter  Laux  died  intestate  February  16,  1799,  leaving  eight  sur- 
viving children,  his  wife  Catharina,  having  died  August  18,  1798. 
Both  are  buried  at  the  Tohickon  church.  Letters  of  administra- 
tion were  granted  to  his  two  eldest  sons,  John  Laux  and  Jacob 
Laux.  The  old  Laux  homestead  was  sold,  June  7,  1799,  to  John 
Salade  (a  grandson  of  Peter  Laux,  and  the  nephew  of  the  heirs), 
and  distribution  of  the  assets  of  the  estate  was  made  soon 
thereafter. 

Barbara  Laux,  the  eldest  child  was  married  June  10,  1773,  to 
Jacob  Salade,  born  February  2,  1748,  son  of  Friederich  Salade, 
an  armourer  in  the  German  army,  serving  under  Frederick  the 
Great,  who  came  to  America  from  Rotterdam,  arriving  at  Phila- 
delphia, October  4,  1751,  making  his  home  in  Bucks  county.  He 
was  also  of  Huguenot^  ancestry,  his  forefathers  leaving  France 
to  escape  religious  persecution,  and  settling  on  the  Rhine,  in  the 
Canton  of  Basel,  in  Switzerland,  close  to  the  borders  of  France 
and  Germany,  as  you  will  readily  see  by  looking  at  any  good 
map  of  Switzerland.  The  Salades  as  a  family  were  famous  as 
clock  makers  in  Bucks  and  neighboring  counties,  Jacob  Salade, 
the  son-in-law  of  Peter  Laux,  first  establishing  that  industry  in 
Bucks  county.  For  over  one  hundred  years  some  member  of  the 
family  has  been  engaged  in  the  business.  The  colonial  Salade 
clocks  can  still  be  found  in  the  old  mansions  of  Bucks  county — 
fine  specimens  of  the  clock  makers'  art — rivals  in  point  of  work- 
manship of  the  Rittenhouse  clocks,  made  by  the  old  astronomer, 
David  Rittenhouse,  with  whose  family  our  own  is  allied  by  the 
ties  of  marriage. 

Branches  of  the  Salade  family  are  found  also  in  Dauphin  and 

4  The  Saladg  was  an  ancient  family  long  established  in  old  Provence. 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  559 

Berks  counties ;  a  descendant,  Jacob  Salade,  was  Surveyor-Gen- 
eral of  Pennsylvania,  from  1839  to  1845. 

The  same  criminal  carelessness  in  the  spelling  of  the  surname 
that  has  produced  such  sad  results  in  the  spelling  of  the  good  old 
Huguenot  family  name  of  Laux  has  also  been  evident  among  the 
descendants  of  Friederich  Salade,  many  of  the  family  now  spell- 
ing the  name,  S-o-l-i-d-a-y,  so  distigured  that  the  old  French  form 
with  its  accented  final  letter  e  is  no  longer  recognizable.  By  the. 
sound  only  can  its  French  origin  be  detected  by  a  keen  observer. 

Jacob  Salade  died  April  15,  1815,  and  his  wife  Barbara  Laux, 
April  3,  1829,  and  both  lie  buried  in  the  Tohickon  Church  burial 
ground. 

John  Laux,  the  eldest  son,  was  twice  married,  first  in  1782  to 
Anna  Rosenberger,  widow  of  Michael  Leatherman,  daughter  of 
the  Rev.  Henry  Rosenberger,  a  Mennonite  minister  connected 
wath  the  Deep  Run  church,  by  whom  he  had  four  children :  John, 
married  to  Susan  Delp ;  Catharine,  born  Oct.  6,  1784,  married  to 
Isaac  Delp  April  5,  1807;  Peter,  born  June  27,  1786.  married  first 
to  Rebecca  Atherholt,  second  to  Anna  Overholt ;  Abraham,  born 
April  12,  1789.  married  to  Mary  Hafiford.  The  second  wife  of 
John  Laux  was  A,nna  Wismer,  married  February  4.  1808,  the 
widow  of  Jacob  Angeny,  by  whom  he  had  one  son.  Moses,  born 
Mar.  26,  1810. 

Mr.  Charles  \Y.  Loux  of  Philadelphia,  the  family  poet,  author 
of  the  rally  song,  "Laux's  to  the  Front,"  son  of  Ephraim  Loux 
of  Nazareth,  is  a  descendant  of  John  Laux  and  his  first  wife, 
Anna  Rosenberger,  proving  Galton's  theory  of  hereditary  genius, 
and  is  no  doubt  an  example  of  the  persistence  of  certain  traits  in 
the  descendants  of  distinguished  men  for  w^e  find  him  a  ready 
speaker  as  well  as  a  poet — unlike  Oliver  Goldsmith,  who  "wrote 
like  an  angel,  but  talked  like  poor  poll."  The  preachers,  in  the 
early  days,  had  the  gift  of  fervid  oratory.  We  cannot  imagine  a 
Muhlenberg,  a  Schlatter,  a  Doddridge,  or  a  Peter  Cartwright, 
preaching  written  sermons.  The  late  Scjuire  John  A.  Loux  of 
Pipersville,  was  a  grandson  of  John  Laux.  -John  Laux  died  in 
May,  1820. 


560  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

LAUX'S  TO  THE  FRONT. 
By  Charles  W.  Loux. 
Sung  to  the  music  of  "Onward  Christian  Soldiers." 
Scions  of  the  valiant  "Seigneurs  of  the  Lakes,"* 
Hear  the  call  to  battle  as  the  morning  breaks. 
Giant,  evil  forces  rise  before  your  ken; 
Drones  and  weaklings  falter,  and  the  world  needs  men. 

CHORUS:     Forward  then  and  upward, 
Brave  the  battle  brunt. 
Set  on  high  the  standard, 
"Laux's  to  the  Front." 

Error  must  be  routed,  Evil  put  to  flight, 
Truth  must  be  defended,  and  enthroned  the  Right. 
Men  of  martyr's  courage,  whom  no  foe  may  daunt. 
Hear  the  Captain's  order,  "Laux's  to  the  Front." 

CHORUS: 

Strike  with  all  your  might,  as  of  old  your  sires, 

Struck  for  God  and  His  holy  Word,  the  fires 

Persecution  built  fearless  facing.     Smite 

The  Dragon  Wrong  wherever  found,  for  God  and  Right. 

CHORUS: 

John  Jacob  Laux,  second  son  of  Peter  Laux,  was  married  to 
Mary  Stover,  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Christian  Stover  or  Stauffer. 
It  is  evident  that  the  sons  of  Peter  Laux  were  considered  desirable 
husbands  for  their  daughters  by  the  clergymen  of  Bucks  county 
for  we  find  them  giving  them  in  marriage.  The  issue  of  this 
marriage  was  six  children  :  Peter,  Martin,  who  married  a  Smith  ; 
Catharine,  who  preferred  to  live  in  single  blessedness  with  her 
sister  Elizabeth,  who  married  Jesse  Allum;  John  married  to 
Barbara  Funk,  and  Christian  S.  married  to  Lydia  Fretz.  In 
passing  I  may  say  that  you  behold  in  your  speaker  (Dr.  Loux) 
a  descendant  of  John  Jacob  Laux.    He  died  May  2,  1825. 

John  Peter  Laux,  third  son,  married  Anna  Overholt,  daughter 
of  Henry  Overholt,  and  sister  of  Abraham  Overholt,  who 
achieved  fame  in  western  Pennsylvania,  the  grandfather  of 
Henry  Clay  Frick,  one  of  Pennsylvania's  great  captains  of  in- 
dustry, and  one  of  America's  greatest  patrons  of  art. 

•  The  ancient  du  Lauxs  were  lords  of  the  waters  or  lakes,  in  the  old  King- 
dom of  Navarre  in  the  south  of  France,  hence  their  surname. 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  561 

John  Peter  Laux  disposed  of  his  landed  estate  in  1799,  and  in 
the  following  year  moved  with  his  family  to  Westmoreland 
county,  in  western  Pennsylvania,  accompanied  by  his  brother-in- 
law,  Abraham  Overholt,  and  family.  He  first  located  on  Jacobs 
Creek  in  Fayette  county,  but  remained  there  only  a  year.  He 
then  purchased  a  tract  of  eighty  acres  of  John  Hugus,  in  West- 
moreland county,  on  which  there  was  a  log  cabin  into  which  he 
moved  with  his  family.  Two  years  later  he  bought  another  tract  of 
eighty  acres  on  which  the  most  valuable  portion  of  the  thriving 
manufacturing  town  of  Scottdale  now  stands,  and  which  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  great  wealth  of  the  Westmoreland  branch  of 
the  family,  and  which  their  descendants  with  characteristic  Laux 
energy  made  the  most  of.  We  find  them  today  actively  engaged 
as  coal  and  coke  operators,  iron  manufacturers  and  bankers,  as 
well  as  being  heavy  owners  of  real  estate.  It  is,  too,  as  far  as  I 
can  learn,  the  only  ofiF-shoot  of  the  Bucks  county  family  that  has 
radically  changed  the  spelling  of  the  family  name,  now  spelling  it 
L-o-u-c-k-s,  as  they  do  in  York,  Pa.  O !  the  pity  of  it !  "Loux" 
is  also  a  corrupted  form  of  the  name. 

Nine  children  blessed  the  marriage  of  John  Peter  Laux  and 
Anna  Overholt :  Catharine  Laux,  the  eldest  child,  born  in  1793, 
in  Bucks  county,  married  John  W.  StauiTer  of  Bucks  county ; 
Henry  Laux,  born  in  1794,  in  Plumstead,  Bucks  county,  married 
first,  Mary  Myers  ;  second,  Barbara  Rosenberger  Staufifer,  daugh- 
ter of  Henry  and  Betty  Rosenberger  Staufifer ;  Jacob  Laux, 
born  January  6.  1795,  in  Plumstead,  Bucks  county,  married  Cath- 
arine Smith,  the  widow  of  Christian  Fretz ;  Mary  Laux,  born 
March  19,  1797,  in  Plumstead,  Bucks  county,  married  Jacob 
Shupe;  Martin  Laux,  born  December  9,  1798,  in  Plumstead, 
Bucks  county,  married  Nancy  Staufifer.  He  became  a  well  known 
minister  of  the  gospel  in  Westmoreland  and  Fayette  counties,  and 
was  the  father  of  the  late  Peter  S.  Loucks,  the  banker  and 
manufacturer  of  Scottdale,  Pennsylvania ;  Nancy  Laux,  died  un- 
married in  early  life ;  John  Laux,  born  April  8,  1802,  in  Fayette 
county,  married  Sarah  Bassler.  He  was  the  father  of  the  Rev. 
Peter  Loucks,  a  prominent  minister  of  Westmoreland  county; 
Peter  Laux,  born  September  21,  1825,  in  Westmoreland  county, 
married  Anna  Barkey,  and  removed  to  Elkhart.  Indiana ;  Sarah 
Laux,  born  November  28,  1808,  in  Westmoreland  county,  mar- 


562  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

ried  Samuel  L.  Dillinger,  an  extensive  landowner  and  one  of  the 
early  coal  and  coke  operators  of  western  Pennsylvania.  He  was 
one  of  the  projectors  of  the  South  ^^'est  Branch  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania railroad,  which  penetrates  the  famous  Connellsville  cok- 
ing coal  field.  His  sons  are  prominent  business  men  in  West- 
moreland county,  engaged  in  banking,  coal  mining,  coke  manu- 
facture and  were  formerly  engaged  in  distilling. 

Catharine  Laux,  the  fifth  child,  born  June  5,  1763.  was  mar- 
ried to  Lawrence  Kramer.  Her  brief  life-story  constitutes  one 
of  the  saddest  and  most  tragic  chapters  in  the  annals  of  Bucks 
county,  for  on  the  21st  of  June,  1785,  she  wdth  her  young  son, 
Peter,  her  only  child,  was  brutally  murdered,  and  their  bodies 
burned  in  the  fiery  furnace  into  which  her  home  was  converted 
by  their  murderer  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  his  crime.  This 
horrible  deed  was  committed  by  a  man  named  John  McDonall 
for  whose  arrest  a  reward  of  £50  was  ofifered  by  Governor  John 
Dickinson.^  In  the  Proclamation  ofifering  the  reward  the  murder- 
er is  described  as  follows :  "McDonall  is  an  Irishman  about 
twenty-five  years  old,  and  five  feet  high,  very  thick  set  much 
marked  in  the  face  by  smallpox,  with  short  curled  brown  hair, 
and  walks  slow  and  wide.  Had  with  him  when  he  left  Bedmin- 
ster  a  double  barrelled  pistol,  the  stock  of  which  is  inlaid  with 
silver."  The  murderer  was  eventually  captured  and  paid  the 
penalty  of  his  crime  on  the  gallows  at  Newtown,  not  many  months 
thereafter.*^  It  was,  I  believe  the  second  execution  in  the  history 
of  Bucks  county,  the  first  one  having  taken  place  in  the  month  of 
July,  1693,  when  Derrick  Johnson,  a  Swede,  alias  Closson,  was 
hanged  for  the  murder  of  an  unknown  man  who  stopped  at  his 
home. 

Andrew  Laux,  the  fourth  son  and  sixth  child  of  Peter  Laux, 
was  born  November  5,  1768,  married  Anna  Maria  Hartman,  born 
Nov.  13,  1773,  died  Sept.  17,  1842,  daughter  of  Matthias  Hart- 
man  and  wife  Catharine.  They  had,  as  far  as  known,  seven 
children:  Peter,  born  April  18,  1800;  John,  born  in  1803; 
Catharine,  born  May  22,  1805;  Andrew,  born  October  1,  1806; 
Mathias,    bom    April    7.    1808;    Maria    Magdalena.    born    No- 

5  See:    Pennsylvania  Archives.  Fourtli  Series,  vol.  Ill,  pp.   1030-31. 

6  See  also:  Autobiography  of  Charles  Biddle,  Vice-President  of  the  Su- 
preme Executive  Council  of  Pennsylvania,  1745-1821,  page  206,  for  an  ac- 
count of  this  murder,  and  a  sketch  of  the  murderer. 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  563 

By  the  President  tfW//6^  Supreme  Executive  Com  hc\l  of  the  Commonwealth 

of  Pennfylvania, 

A    PROCLAMATION. 

TT  THERE  AS  it  appears  to  us,  that  Catharine  the  wife  of  Lawrence  Lraymer, 
jun.of  the  tounlhip  of  Bedminfterin  the  County  of  Bucks,  and  PeierKray- 
incr,  his  Ton,  were  killed  and  murdered  in  the  night  of  the  twenty-firfl:  infl.  in  the 
dwcllina  houfe  of  the  faid  Lawrence  Kraymer,  hy  a  certain  John  M*Donall,and  that 
he  afterwards  fet  fire  to  the  dwelling  houfe  aforefaid,  by  which  the  (ame  was  dcftroyed : 
And  W  hcrcas  it  is  of  the  utmoft  importance  to  the  lives  of  the  good  people  of  this  ftate, 
and  a  due  execution  of  the  laws,  that  the  perpetrator  of  a  crime  fo  horrid,  (hould  be 
brought  to  condign  and  cxamplary  puniihment :  Wc  have  therefore  thought  proper  to 
il]uc  this  proclamation,  hereby  engaging,  that  the  public  reward  of  Fifty  Pounds,  in  Spe- 
cie, (hall  be  paid  to  any  perfon  or  perfons  who  (hall  apprehend  and  fecure  the  faid  John 
M'Donall,  to  be  paid  on  convidion  for  the  fame:  And  we  do  hereby  charge  and  require 
an  judges,  J  uft  ices,  (heriffs  and  conftables,  to  make  diligent  feahch  and  enquiry  after,  and 
to  ufe  their  utmoft  endeavours  to  apprehend  and  tecure  the  faid  John  M'Donall  his 
aiders,  abettors  and  comforters,  and  every  of  them,  fothat  they  may  be  dealt  with  ac- 
cording to  law. 

GIFEN  in  Gouncil,  under  the  the  hand  of  the  Prefident,  and  thefeal  of  the  ft  ate  ^at 
'  Philadelphia,  this  thirtieth  day  of  June  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thoufand 

(even  hundred  and  eighty  five. 

^  ^  JOHN  DICKINSON. 

Attest.  } 

JOHN  A«.MSTRO,NC;,  Jun.  Secrm  ary       i 

COD  SAVE  THE  COMMONWEALTH  ! 


The  fa.d  Tohn  M'Donall  is  an  Irill.man,  about  twenty  five  yeacc  old.  and  five  feet  high,  very  thick  fct.  muchmarkedin 
I  the  face  by  ihe  fmall  pox,  witli  fl.ort  curled  brown  hair,  and  walks  Qow  and  wide,  had  with  hun  when  he  left  Bedmxnlta-, 
I  a  double  barrel'd  piftol  the  ftock  of  which  is  inlaid  with  filver. 


THE    ABOVE    IS    A    REDUCED    FAC-SIMILE    OF    THE     ORIGINAL    BROADSIDE 

found  among  the  Archives  at  Harrisburg,  the   same    being    9%    by    12    inches,    in   which    form    the 
Proclamation  first  appeared  as  well  as  in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  July  6,  1785. 


564  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

vember  3.  1809,  and  Samuel,  born  j\Iarch  31.  1813.  A  number 
of  the  descendants  of  Andrew  Laux,  I  believe,  became  educators 
and  lawyers,  and  one  a  minister.  Some  of  his  descendants  are 
living,  I  understand  in  Kansas  and  Illinois.  The  oldest  surviving 
grandson  is  Noah  S.  Loux  of  Stirling,  Illinois,  hale  and  hearty  at 
eighty-one  years.    Andrew  Laux  died  April  5,  1845. 

John  Adam  Laux,  the  fifth  son  and  seventh  child  of  Peter 
Laux,  was  born  October  12,  1771 ;  married  April  12,  1796,  Eliza- 
beth Ott,  daughter  of  Peter  Ott.  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  the 
issue  of  which  marriage  was  nine  children :  Peter,  bom  April  30, 
1798,'^  married  Elizabeth  Harwick,  born  February  2,  1807,  daugh- 
ter of  Samuel  Harwick.  Maria  Magdalena,  born  January  8,  1800, 
married  Samuel  Diehl ;  Henry,  born  January  19,  1802,  married 
Anna  Katharine  Heller,  daughter  of  Michael  Heller,  and  grand- 
daughter of  David  Heller,  a  revolutionary  soldier  and  founder  of 
Hellertown,  Pennsylvania;  Elizabeth,  born  January  13,  1804, 
married  a  Rice;  Lydia,  born  March  12,  1808,  married  Richard 
Umstead;  Jacob,  born  July  15,  1810;  Susanna,  born  May  15, 
1813,  married  William  Jordan;  Daniel,  born  March  15,  1816; 
married  Catharine  Welder,  died  Nov.  21,  1885. 

Two  of  the  speakers  here  today,  at  this  York  reunion,  are 
great-grandsons  of  John  Adam  Laux :  The  Rev.  Edward  A. 
Loux,  D.D.,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman  of  Troy,  N.  Y.,  and  the 
Hon.  James  B.  Laux  of  New  York  City,  who  is  the  possessor  of 
the  quaintly  illuminated  baptismal  certificate  of  his  great-grand- 
father, John  Adam  Laux  and  which  bears  the  names  of  Frederich 
Salade  and  wiie  Barbara,  as  sponsors.  John  Adam  Laux  died 
April  11,  1859. 

Elizabeth  Laux,  the  eighth  child  of  Peter  Laux,  the  immi- 
grant, born   married  Henry  Bryan  or  Breian 

of  Bucks  county,  born  Nov.  21,  1769.  The  known  children  of 
this  marriage  were  as  shown  by  the  Tohickon  Church  Records: 
John  Peter,  born  Nov.  18,  1793 ;  John,  bom  Dec.  20,  1795 ;  An- 
drew, born  Mar.  27,  1799;  Barbara,  born  Dec.  12,  1801;  and 
Magdalena,  born  Feb.  26,  1807.  Henry  Breian  sold  his  lands  in 
1811  and  removed  to  Westmoreland  County  where  he  died  about 

7  Among  the  List  of  Catechumens  in  the  Reformed  Church  records  of  To- 
hickon, May  22,  1814,  the  name  of  Catharine,  aged  16,  is  given  as  daughter 
of  Adam  Laux  which  would  make  her  born  in  1798.  May  have  been  twin 
sister  of  Peter. 


564  THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 

vember  3.  1809,  and  Samuel,  born  March  31,  1813.  A  number 
of  the  descendants  of  Andrew  Laux,  I  beheve,  became  educators 
and  lawyers,  and  one  a  minister.  Some  of  his  descendants  are 
living,  I  understand  in  Kansas  and  Illinois.  The  oldest  surviving 
grandson  is  Noah  S.  Loux  of  Stirling,  Illinois,  hale  and  hearty  at 
eighty-one  years.    Andrew  Laux  died  April  5,  1845. 

John  Adam  Laux,  the  fifth  son  and  seventh  child  of  Peter 
Laux,  was  born  October  12,  1771 ;  married  April  12,  1796,  Eliza- 
beth Ott,  daughter  of  Peter  Ott,  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  the 
issue  of  which  marriage  was  nine  children :  Peter,  born  April  30, 
1798,'^  married  Elizabeth  Harwick,  born  February  2,  1807,  daugh- 
ter of  Samuel  Harwick.  Maria  Magdalena,  born  January  8,  1800, 
married  Samuel  Diehl ;  Henry,  born  January  19,  1802,  married 
Anna  Katharine  Heller,  daughter  of  Michael  Heller,  and  grand- 
daughter of  David  Heller,  a  revolutionary  soldier  and  founder  of 
Hellertown,  Pennsylvania ;  Elizabeth,  born  January  13,  1804, 
married  a  Rice ;  Lydia,  born  March  12,  1808,  married  Richard 
Umstead ;  Jacob,  born  July  15,  1810;  Susanna,  born  May  15, 
1813,  married  William  Jordan;  Daniel,  born  March  15,  1816; 
married  Catharine  Welder,  died  Nov.  21,  1885. 

Two  of  the  speakers  here  today,  at  this  York  reunion,  are 
great-grandsons  of  John  Adam  Laux:  The  Rev.  Edward  A. 
Loux,  D.D.,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman  of  Troy,  N.  Y.,  and  the 
Hon.  James  B.  Laux  of  New  York  City,  who  is  the  possessor  of 
the  quaintly  illuminated  baptismal  certificate  of  his  great-grand- 
father, John  Adam  Laux  and  which  bears  the  names  of  Frederich 
Salade  and  wife  Barbara,  as  sponsors.  John  Adam  Laux  died 
April  11,  1859. 

Elizabeth  Laux,  the  eighth  child  of  Peter  Laux,  the  immi- 
grant, born   married  Henry  Bryan  or  Breian 

of  Bucks  county,  born  Nov.  21,  1769.  The  known  children  of 
this  marriage  were  as  shown  by  the  Tohickon  Church  Records : 
John  Peter,  born  Nov.  18,  1793 ;  John,  bom  Dec.  20,  1795 ;  An- 
drew, born  Mar.  27,  1799;  Barbara,  born  Dec.  12,  1801;  and 
Magdalena,  born  Feb.  26,  1807.  Henry  Breian  sold  his  lands  in 
1811  and  removed  to  Westmoreland  County  where  he  died  about 

7  Among  the  List  of  Catechumens  in  the  Reformed  Church  records  of  To- 
hickon, May  22,  1814,  the  name  of  Catharine,  aged  16,  is  given  as  daughter 
of  Adam  Laux  which  would  make  her  born  in  1798.  May  have  been  twin 
sister  of  Peter. 


,t 


mne^eni 


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f=0a«b  mii: 


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ft 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  565 

1858.  Several  of  their  descendants  it  is  said  are  living  in  Bucks 
county  today. 

Maria  Magdalena  Laux,  the  ninth  child  and  the  youngest 
daughter  of  Peter  Laux,  born  June  11,  1775.  became  the  wife  of 
Michael  Lutz.  The  Tohickon  Church  Records  show  baptism  of 
children:  John,  born  Feb.  25,  1807;  Maria  Magdalena,  born 
April  4,  1812 ;  Anna  Catharine,  born  Aug.  2,  1820.  Her  daughter 
Nancy  was  still  living  a  very  few  years  ago  in  Bucks  county. 

Peter  Laux  became  naturalized  in  the  month  of  October,  1765, 
having  taken  the  sacrament  a  short  time  previously  as  was  re- 
quired by  law. 

Peter  Laux  and  his  sons  and  sons-in-law  during  the  Revolu- 
tion were  staunch  patriots,  those  of  his  sons  old  enough  to  bear 
arms  with  himself  being  members  of  the  Associated  Militia  Com- 
panies of  Bucks  County,  organized  for  the  defense  of  the  country. 

Peter  Laux,  Jacob  Laux  and  John  Laux  were  members  of  the 
Bedminster  company  in  1780  and  1781,  as  was  also  Jacob  Salade 
the  son-in-law.  Henry  Laux  and  Lawrence  Kramer,  husband  of 
Catharine  Laux,  were  members  of  the  Rockhill  company,  com- 
manded by  Captain  Andrew  Kechline,  as  early  as  August  10. 
1775.  In  fact,  with  very  few  exceptions,  the  entire  family  con- 
nections were  enrolled  under  the  banner  of  the  Revolutionary 
army,  and  proved  themselves  true  men  and  patriots.  Their  de- 
scendants have  taken  part  in  all  the  wars  waged  since  then,  not 
excepting  our  short  Spanish  War,  thus  keeping  up  the  traditions 
of  the  family  as  good  fighting  stock,  a  militant  race,  whose  ancient 
battle  cry  was  "vaillancc  mcnc  a  la  gloire,"  perpetuated  to  this 
day  as  the  motto  of  its  armorials,  the  spirit  of  which  is  shown 
in  the  inspired  Laux  rally  song  by  Charles  W.  Loux,  the  family 
poet. 

I  have  endeavored  in  the  brief  time  allotted  to  me  to  give  you 
an  outline  sketch  of  your  kindred  in  Bucks  county,  and  I  want  to 
express  to  you  my  great  pleasure  in  being  present  here  today,  and 
in  meeting  so  many  of  the  family — a  big  family  surely,  and  to 
thank  you  for  the  considerate  attention  you  have  given  an  ad- 
dress that  is  necessarily  lacking  in  oratorical  effect,  and  must 
have  been  I  am  sure,  very  dry  hearing. 


566 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY 


NOTES  AND  QUERIES. 

Information  wanted  concerning  John  Jacob  Laux,  of  Lancaster 
County,  Pennsylvania,  A.  D.  1730,  whose  name  with  a  description  of 
his  coat  of  arms  appears  in  "Crozier's  General  Armory,  A  Registry  of 
American  Families  Entitled  to  Coat  Armor,"  edited  by  William  Arm- 
strong Crozier,  F.  R.  S.,  published  in  1904. 

The  Laux  coat  of  arms  is  there  described  as  follows: 


LAUX 


ANGOUMOIS 

"D'or,  au  chene  de  sinople  sur  lequel  broche  un  lion  leoparde  de 
gueles;  a  la  bordure  d'argent  seniee  de  torteaux  d'azur." 

This  is  also  an  exact  description  of  the  heraldic  charges  on  the  Laux 
coat  of  arms  which  appears  elsewhere  in  this  paper,  the  original  of 
which,  with  voluminous  extracts  from  family  records  was  given  to  the 
writer  by  Armand  du  Laux,  late  head  of  the  family  in  France. 

"du  Laux"  means  "of  the  waters  or  lakes"  and  has  also  been  writ- 
ten in  the  singular  form,  "du  Lau"  and  also  alternately  "du  Laux"  and 
"du  Lau"  in  family  papers.  Some  of  the  refugee  members  of  the  family 
who  fled  to  England  after  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
changed  the  name  to  Waters. 

In  Germany  the  prefix  "du"  was  eventually  dropped  or  changed  to 
"von"  as  found  on  tombstone  inscriptions. 

Information  also  wanted  concerning  the  parentage  of  Hannah   Laux,. 


THE    LAUX    FAMILY    OF    BUCKS    COUNTY  567 

whose  marriage  to  John  Hoch   (now  spelled  High)   January  3,   1758,  is 
recorded  in  the  Tohickon   Church   Records. 

WANTED,  the  names  of  the  parents  of  the  following  children  bap- 
tised by  the  Rev.  John  Theobald  Faber.  Parents'  name  not  given  in 
the  Tohickon   Church   Records: 

John  Laux,  b.  Aug.  22,  1776. 
Henry  Laux,  b.  Apl.  23,  1778. 
Daniel  Laux,  b.  Jan.  1,  1780. 
Jacob  Laux,  b.  Dec.  12,  1782. 
The  subsequent  history  of  the  above  named  is  also  desired. 

In  the  "Geschichts  blatter  des  Deutschen  Hugenotten-Vereins"  pub- 
lished in  1899,  there  appeared  an  interesting  sketch  of  the  ancient 
Huguenot- Waldensian  Congregation  established  at  Schonenberg  in 
Wiirtemberg,  Germany,  and  still  existent,  of  which  the  celebrated 
Herni  Arnaud,  the  heroic  leader  of  the  Waldensians  was  pastor  in 
1701.  On  its  long  roll  of  Huguenot  pastors  is  recorded  the  name  of 
Karl  Ludwig  Laux  who  served  from  1867  to  1877. 

Please  send  replies  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical 
Society  at  Doylestown,  Pennsylvania. 


The  Origin  of  Log  Houses  in  the  United  States. 

BY  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER,   DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting,   January    19,    1924.) 

THE  form  of  architectural  construction  known  as  the  Log 
House,  consisting  of  logs  laid  in  a  rectangle,  one  upon  an- 
other, horizontally,  and  notched  at  the  corners,  is  a  very 
ancient    form    of    European    dwelling.      As    existing   in   ancient 
Colchis,  it  is  thus   described   by  Vitruvius   in   the   first   century 
A.  D.: 

"Among  the  nation  of  Colchians,  on  the  sea,  on  account  of  the  abun- 
dance of  forests,  evergreen  trees  (arboribus  perpetuis)  having  been  laid 
level  on  the  ground  to  the  right  and  left  (planis  dextra  ac  sinistra  in 
terra  positis),  a  space  between  them  being  left,  as  far  as  the  lengths  of 
the  trees  extend,  upon  them,  at  their  ends,  other  transverse  pieces,  in- 
cluding the  interior  area  of  the  habitation  are  placed,  (collocantur  in 
extremis  partibus  arnum  supra  alterae  transversae  quae  circumcludunt 
medium  spatium  habitationis),  then  thereupon,  with  alternate  beams, 
(trabibus),  yoking  (jugumentantes,)  the  corners  on  all  four  sides 
(partibus).  And  so  walls  of  trees  erected  perpendicularly  upward, 
(parietes  ex  arboribus  statuentes  ad  perpendiculum  imarum),  build  to  an 
altitude  high  buildings,  (turres),  and  the  intervals  which  are  left,  on 
account  of  the  thickness  (crassitudinem)  of  the  material,  they  stop  up 
with  chips  and  mud.  In  like  manner  they  throw  across  covering-cross- 
pieces,  receding  at  the  extreme  corners.  So  from  the  four  sides  up- 
ward in  the  middle,  they  build  up  pryamids,  covering  which  with 
branches  and  mud,  they  make,  in  barbarous  fashion,  vaulted  (tes- 
tudinata)   roofs  for  their  buildings   (turrium)."i 

(Vitruvius  Pollionis — De  Architectura — lib.  decern  cum  comment 
Danielis  Barberi — Venetiis  apud  Franciscum  Senensem — et  Joh.  Crugher 
Germanum — 1657  p.  49.) 

It  is  further  known  that  this  uniquie  form  of  wall  construction 
has  been  in  use  in  Scandinavia  since  the  middle  ages,  that  log 
houses  have  long  been  known  in  Germany,  and  that  they  now 
(1924)    extend  across  northern  Europe,  through   Russia,  Asia, 

1  In  a  folio  edition  of  a  French  translation  of  Vitruvius,  (Les  Dix  Libres 
de  Vitruve  traduits  etc  par  M.  Prerault — de  1'  Academic  Royale  de  Sciences 
— etc — Paris  Coignard — 1684 — p.  32,  in  plate),  the  translator,  M.  Perrault. 
illustrates  his  idea  of  what  Vitruvius  meant,  with  an  imaginary  drawing, 
showing  such  divergence  from  the  wall  and  roof  construction  of  the  real  log 
house,  as  then  in  use  in  Scandinavia,  that  we  might  infer  that  the  log  house 
could  not  have  been  known  in  Prance  in  his  time. 


I.    ''^ 


Figure   2.      CORNER  OF  THE  FROST 
GARRISON    HOUSE    AT    ELLIOT,    ME. 

Built  in  1734.  Logs  are  dovetailed  con- 
tinuously so  that  each  log  locks  the  one 
below  it.  Examined  and  photographed 
in    1923    by    Mr.    William    R.    Mercer. 


Figure  7.  CoUXlOll  OV  THI-:  Me- 
INTYK1<:  CARHISUN  HOUSE,  NEAR 
YORK,  ME.  Built  (according  to  the 
family  records  of  Mr.  Mclntyre,  its 
present,  owner  a  direct  descendant  of 
the  builder,)  in  1640  to  1645,  therefore 
contemporary  with  the  earliest  possible 
Swedish  buildings  in  the  Delaware  Val- 
ley, and  possibly  the  oldest  log  struc- 
ture standing  in  the  United  States. 
Hei-e  the  visible  logs  apiJear  to  lock  in 
pairs,  not  continuously,  as  in  Figs.  2,  3, 
4,  etc.  Kindly  photographed  by  Mr. 
William  R.  Mercer,  1923.  Examined 
by  Dr.  Gilliland  of  Philadelnhia,  and 
Mr.   J.   C.    Stewart  of  York,   Me. 


ii  j:  C 


<1^      ^      .  "  -2' 


K         3  O 


^  §  ^  §  ^- 

s-  o  X  5 


ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES   IX   THE   UNITED  STATES  569 

Siberia,-  (Fig.  1).  and  Mancuria,  and  exist  in  Korea."  Though 
common  in  Switzerland,  the  writer  has  been  unable  to  learn 
whether  old  examples  or  survivals  exist  in  the  neighboring  French 
Vosges,  or  in  the  mountains  of  Spain  or  Italy,  or  whether  they 
were  known  in  France  at  the  time  of  the  French  settlement  of 
America,  or  brought  to  South  or  Central  America  by  the  Span- 
ish conquerors. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  well  established,  that  the  North  Ameri- 
can Indians,  as  for  example  the  Iroquois,  with  their  "Long 
House,"  the  wood  carving  Totem-Pole-Making,  Indians  of  the 
northwestern  coast,  or  the  advanced  Cherokees  and  Natchez  of 
the  south,  knew  nothing  of  this  method  of  construction. 

In  North  America  the  very  ingenious  builders'  method  has  ap- 
peared conspicuously  in  two  forms,  namely, —  (a)  the  fort,  and 
(b)  the  house,  with  its  adjuncts  and  derevatives  (i.e.  barns,  out- 
houses, workshops,  schoolhouses,  churches,  etc.)  and  as  in  the 
house  form,  it  had  become  the  typical  American  pioneer  dwelling 
in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  as  it  would  be  alto- 
gether unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  European  immigrants  in- 
vented it,  it  seems  desirable  to  prove  by  definite  evidence,  whether 
it  was  first  introduced  by  the  French  in  Canada,  the  Spanish  in 
Florida,  the  Dutch  in  New  York,  the  English  in  Virginia,  Massa- 
chusetts and  Pennsylvania,  or  the  Swedes  in  the  Delaware  valley. 

Dr.  Amandus  Johnson  (Swedish  Settlements  on  the  Delaware, 
U.  of  Pa.  Pub.  Appleton,  N.  Y.,  1911),  confining  himself  to  the 
Delaware   valley,    describes   the    log   construction    as    introduced 

2  Log  houses  standing  in  1918  in  Samara  district,  300  miles  north  of  the 
Caspian  sea,  near  the  town  of  Buzuluk.  Logs  (probably  of  evergreen  trees) 
laid  with  cracks  luted  with  hemp  inside  and  clay  outside.  No  cellars.  Wood 
floors.  Two  rooms.  Stoves  hand  made  of  clay  for  cooking  and  warming. 
Adobe  dwellings  common  in  the  same  district. 

Seen  in  1918  by  Miss  Emily  Bradbury,  29  E.  Plum  street,  Germantown, 
Pa.     Information  from  her  January   24,   1923. 

3  Log  house  in  Korea  in  1920.  Information  of  Rev.  Clarence  Hoffman, 
missionary,  Kangsi,  Korea,  to  H.  C.  M.,  October  6,  1920.  Logs  at  corners 
simply  notched,  always  on  bottom  side,  and  never  on  top.  One  notch  per  log. 
Logs  not  squared,  never  touching,  always  chinked  with  mud  or  clay.  Ends 
at  corners  never  sawed  off  close  as  ours.  No  chamfering  on  top  ends  of  logs 
over  lower  notch.  Notches  round  and  rough.  Bark  frequently  left  on  log. 
Roof  two  vertical  posts  mortised,  rise  from  middle  of  the  top  logs  at  either 
gable  on  level  of  the  so  called  square.  These  sometimes  naturally  forked  at 
top.  From  one  to  the  other  a  ridge  pole,  sometimes  mortised  to  these  vertical 
posts.  From  this  rafters  at  about  18  inches  apart  run  down  to  plate  logs  to 
which  they  are  tied  with  straw  rope.  Across  rafters  heavy  layer  of  wattles 
tied  down  ditto  on  which  four  inches  of  mud  on  which  heavy  shingles  about 
20  inches  by  12  by  two  inches  thick,  riven  with  the  frow  are  laid  and  weighted 
down  with  stones.  Otherwise,  pieces  of  bark,  ditto.  Gables.  Horizontal  lay- 
ers of  wattles  tied  on  with  rice  straw  twists  and  mud  plastered  inside  and 
out.     Vitruvius's  roof  not  seen. 


570  ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES   IN   THE   UNITED  STATES 

there,  by  the  Swedes  and  Finns,  at  their  first  coming  in  1638. 
C.  F.  Innocent  (Development  of  English  Building  Construction, 
Cambridge  University  Press,  1916,  page  109),  says  that 

"The  Block  House  type  of  construction  spread  in  Europe  westward 
to  Switzerland,  and  northward  to  Scandinavia.  The  European  settlers 
took  it  with  them  across  the  Atlantic  to  the  new  and  well  timbered 
continent  of  North  America,  and  the  Russians  have  carried  it  across 
Asia  as  far  as  the  Pacific  ocean,"  but  further  that,  "there  is  no  satis- 
factory evidence  that  this  form  of  building  was  ever  in  use  in  Eng- 
land, in  any  of  its  forms,  although  fine  timber  was  formerly  so  abundant." 

Fiske  Kimball  (Domestic  Architecture  of  the  American  Colon- 
ists, etc.,  N.  Y.,  Scribner  1922,  pages  6  to  8)  quotes  Johnson  and 
Innocent,  and  failing  to  find  any  log  house  construction  by  the 
first  English  settlers  at  Jamestown  or  Plymouth,  and  citing  the 
Archives  of  Maryland  and  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina 
to  prove  later  log  houses  built  in  these  colonies  about  1668  and 
1680,  supposes  that  the  "Log  house  was  brought  to  America  by 
the  people  in  whose  native  land  at  that  time  it  was  the  customary 
form  of  dwelling,  the  Swedes  and  Finns  who  settled  on  the  Dela- 
ware in  1638  and  the  years  following,"  and  that  early  trade  and  in- 
terchange of  ideas  between  the  Delaware  Valley  Colonists  (New 
Sweden)  and  Virginia  and  New  England,  "ultimately  taught  the 
English  colonists  a  method  of  construction  so  obviously  suited  to 
pioneer  conditions  in  the  new  heavily  forested  continent." 

A  few  further  notes  on  the  subject  are  offered  by  the  writer  as 
follows : 

FRENCH  LOG  HOUSES  IN  CANADA. 

The  writer  has  received  through  the  kind  information  of  Mr. 
A.  G.  Douglas,  deputy  minister  of  Canada,  and  Mr.  Gustav 
Lanctot,  provincial  archivist,  the  following  extracts  from  the 
Canadian  Archives : 

(1)  Relation  de  1635,  p.  6.  (Thwaites  Jesuit  Relations  and  Allied 
Documents.  Vol.  8,  p.  281.) 

(1635)  "Notre  maison,  en  ce  premier  commencement,  (1635)  n'  etait 
que  quelques  buches  de  bois  jointes  les  unes  aupres  des  autres,  enduites 
par  les  ouvertures  d'une  peu  de  terre,  et  couvertes,  d'herbe;  nous  avions. 
en  tout  douze  pieds  en  quarre  pour  la  chapelle  et  pour  notre  demeure, 
attendant  qu'un  batiment  de  charpente  qu'on  dressait  fut  acheve." 

Translation— "Our  house  at  the  beginning  (1635)  was  nothing  but 
some  logs   of  wood   set   the  one    (close   to?)    the   other— plastered   over 


Figure  5. 

SIDE    VIEW    OF    FORT    HALIFAX,    WINSLOW,    ME. 

Showing  second  story  overhang,  and  loopholes.  The 
door  is  modern.  Kindly  examined  and  photographed  by 
Mr.   W.   S.   Appleton,  and  Dr.   Oilland  in   1911   and   1923. 


Figure   6.      FOIIT   HALIFAX,   WIXSLOW,    MAINE. 

Showing-  corner  dovetail.  Squared  logs.  Closed  joints.  One  of  the  original 
loop  holes  shows.  Window^  probably  enlarged  at  the  opening  of  another  loop 
hole.      Dooi'  and   shingles  modern. 


Fig'ure   8. 
THE  BUNKER  GARRISON  HOUSE  AT  DURHAM,  N.  H. 

Photographed  when  in  ruins,  by  Mr.  W.  S.  Appleton, 
1911.  The  square  logs  are  hewn  to  an  equal  thicicness, 
varying  in  height,  and  their  projecting  ends,  overlapping 
at  the  corners,  are  cut,  not  into  dovetails,  but  rectangular 
points,    (mortises). 


ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES  IN   THE  UNITED  STATES  571 

their  openings  with  a  little  earth,  and  covered  with  grass.  We  have  in 
all  a  dozen  feet  square  for  the  chapel,  and  for  our  dwelling,  waiting 
until  a  building  of  carpenter  work  that  they  are  working  on  is  finished." 

(2)  Extrait  de  "les  Ursulines  des  Trois-Rivieres"  vol.  I,  p.  15. 
Note  au  bas  de  la  page. 

(1664)  "La  premiere  eglise  paroissiale  construite  en  1664  etait  en 
bois  rond  ferme  aux  angles  en  queues  d'aronde.  La  facade  de  cet 
edifice  regardait  la  basse-ville,  son  flanc  longeait  la  rue  Saint-Pierre." 

Translation — "The  first  parish  church  built  in  1664  was  in  round 
wood  dovetailed  at  the  corners.  The  front  of  this  edifice  looked  out 
on  the  lower  city.     Its  side  faced  the  rue  Saint-Pierre." 

(3)  "Extract  from  ordinance  against  many  inhabitants  of  the  Isle 
of  Orleans  who  have  built  houses  contrary  to  the  Royal  ordinance 
dated  the  28  April,   1745;  of  the   12th  January,   1752. 

Judgments  of  the  Intendants  of  Canada  1752,  p.  594. 
Printed  in  "Edits  et  ordonnances  etc..  Vol.   II,  p.  594. 

FRANCOIS  BIGOT,  ETC. 

(1745-1752)  Que  Jean-Marie  Plante.  aussi  habitant  du  dit  lieu  de 
Saint-Jean,  a  egalement  bati,  I'ete  dernier,  une  maison  de  'pieces  sur 
pieces,'  sur  un  arpent  de  front  sur  la  profoundeur  suffisante." 

Translation — "That  Jean  Marie  Plante  also  an  inhabitant  of  said 
place  of  St.  John  has  also  built — last  year  a  house  of  ('pieces  on  pieces') 
log  on  log — on  an  acre  front  of  sufficient  depth." 

(4)  Extrait  de  I'Ordonnance  portant  Reglement  pour  la  construc- 
tion des  Maisons  en  materiaus  incombustibles,  dans  les  Villes  de  la 
XTolonie;  du  7  juin,  1727." 

CLAUDE  THOMAS  DUPUY,   ETC. 

1727  "I.  De  batir  aucune  maison  dans  les  villes  et  gros  bourgs,  ou 
il  se  trouvera  de  la  pierre  commodement,  autrement,  qu'en  pierres; 
defendons  de  les  batir  en  bois,  de  pieces  sur  pieces  et  de  colombage 
quand  meme  ce  seroit  pour  les  recouvrir  et  enduire  de  chaux  et  sable." 

Translation — "1.  To  build  any  house  in  the  villages  and  large  towns, 
where  available  stones  are  to  be  found,  other  than  of  stones.  It  is  for- 
bidden to  build  them  in  wood  (pieces  on  pieces)  log  on  log,  and  of 
"colombage"  (row  of  joists?)  although  it  might  be  (intended)  to 
cover  and  plaster  them  with  lime  and  sand?" 

Mr.  Harry  Piers,  president  of  the  Nova  Scotia  Historical  So- 
ciety, writes  indefinitely  as  his  opinion  that 

"Log  houses  and  Block  houses  (forts)  were  common  in  Nova  Scotia, 
from  the  earliest  date;  that  some  log  houses  still  survive  in  Nova  Scotia, 
and  that  this  manner  of  building  was  taught  to  the  first  English  set- 
tlers coming  to  Nova  Scotia  from  England,  by  officials  and  others  from 
New  England;  that  the  Block  house  fort  was  decidedly  introduced  by 
New  Englanders  and  adopted  by  the  British  Troops." 


572  ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES   IN   THE   UNITED  STATES 

But  the  first  of  these  quotations.  (1)  in  1635,  may  or  may  not 
refer  to  a  log  house,  and  the  others.  (2),  (3)  and  (4),  all  are  too 
late  to  give  certain  precedence  to  the  French  house  builders.  The 
second  (2)  certainly  showing  a  knowledge  of  the  form  of  con- 
struction in  1664,  seems  to  refer  to  a  church,  and  not  a  dwelling. 

Further  than  this,  the  writer  has  been  unable  to  learn  whether 
the  log  house  was  known  in  France  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
whether  forts  or  block  houses  of  logs  were  built  in  Canada  in 
the  early  seventeenth  century,  or  whether  the  expression  "Pieces 
sur  pieces"  was  used  in  France  before  the  first  French  settlers 
came  to  America. 

SPANISH    LOG    HOUSES    IN    FLORIDA. 

Leaving  Canada  therefore  in  doubt,  several  inquiries  concern- 
ing the  possibility  of  Spanish  log  houses  in  Florida  were  answered 
by  letters  from  the  St.  Augustine  Historical  Society  (Miss  E.  L. 
Wilson,  January  22,  1923)  to  the  effect  that  the  Spanish  records 
examined  show  that  the  early  Spanish  settlers  at  St.  Augustine, 
before  1597,  used  logs  for  house  building,  not  horizontally,  but 
set  as  posts,  vertically  in  Pallisado  style. 

LOG  HOUSES  AMONG  THE  DUTCH   OF   NEW  YORK 

We  learn  from  Mr.  Reginald  P.  Bolton,  prominently  associated 
with  the  recent  excavations  at  historical  sites  of  the  New  York 
Historical  Society,  as  follows : 

"In  answer  to  your  enquiry  I  would  say,  that  I  do  not  know  of  any 
log  dwellings  in  this  locality  of  date  prior  to  1700.  In  fact,  all  the 
recorded  information  indicates  that  the  early  settlers  here  did  not  con- 
struct such  a  form  of  dwelling,  but  that  they  followed  the  natives'  es- 
tablished methods  by  erecting  a  frame  covered  with  bark.  This  is 
noted  by  J.  H.  Innes  in  his  book,  'New  Amsterdam  and  Its  People,' 
from  which  I  quote  as  follows: 

"'Amsterdam  and  Its  People,'  by  J.  H.  linnes,  1902,  says,  p.  2: 
"  'The  early  course  of  building  at  the  new  settlement  is  pretty  well 
known.  The  original  log  block-house,  with  its  surrounding  palisades 
*  *  *  occupied  part  of  the  site  of  the  later  Fort  Amsterdam  *  *  * 
Of  the  30  dwellings  *  *  *  these  early  cabins  are  said  to  have  been 
of  bark.  They  were  propably  duly  framed  of  hewn  timber,  but  owing 
to  the  lack  of  saw  mills  at  this  time  had  been  covered  after  the 
fashion  of  shingling,  with  the  thick  bark  of  the  chestnut  or  other  suit- 
able  forest   trees.      The   roof  over   all   thatched   with   the   native   reeds.' 


Figure  !t.  CORXKR  OF  THK  DAM  CARRI- 
SOX  HOUSE.  AT  DOVER,  N.  H.  Alleged  date 
1675.  As  at  the  Bunker  Garrison  House,  at  Dur- 
ham, N.  H..  the  close  fitting  logs  are  hewn  to  an 
even  thickness,  but  varying  in  height,  and  their 
ends  are  cut  into  squared,  not  dovetailed  overlaps, 
hence  offer  no  resistance  to  the  outthrust  of  the 
log  walls.  To  counteract  this  two  iron  brackets 
appear  spiked  or  bolted  against  the  corners. 
Photographed  by  Mr.  W^.  S.  Appleton.  about  1911. 
Also  examined  by  Dr.   Gilliland  about   1923. 


Figure  10. 
CORNER  OP  THE  GILLMAN  GARRISON  HOUSE,  AT  EXETER,  X.  H. 
Alleged  date  about  1650.  In  this  portion  of  the  upper  story  corner,  the 
log  ends  appear  partly  as  squared  tenons  (See  Pigs.  8  and  9)  and  partly 
as  dovetails,  while  in  the  lower  story,  as  examined  by  Dr.  Gilliland,  the 
logs  are  not  overlapped  at  the  corners,  but  tenoned  into  mortises,  cut  into  ver- 
tical corner  posts.  In  this  case,  as  in  the  others  shown,  the  logs  vary  in 
vertical  width,  therefore  the  denth  of  their  corner  cuts,  of  whatever  kind,  also 
varied  and  had  to  be  guaged,  log  by  log,  as  the  work  went  on.  The  logs  at 
the  corners,  as  usual,  have  been  sawed  or  hewn  off  close.  The  roof  on  the 
polygonal  Fort  McClarv  at  Kittery  Point,  Me.,  c.  1700,  observed  by  Dr.  Gilli- 
land, was  not  examined,  but  in  the  other  rectangular  garrisons,  the  second 
stories  frequently  overhung  the  lower,  and  the  vertical  gables  above  the  square 
were  formed  not  of  horizontal  logs  in  the  Swedish  style,  but  of  planks  fastened 
upon  vertical  posts. 


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ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES   IN   THE   UNITED  STATES  573 

"The  earliest  reference  I  find  is  that  of  Wassenaer.  1621,  Wassenaer's 
Historia  Van  Europa,  Amsterdam,  1621,  2i2  1626.  Referring  to  the 
Colony  of  New  Netherlands  as  follows: 

'  "  'The  counting-house  there  is  kept  in  a  stone-building,  thatched  with 
reed,  the  other  houses  are  of  the  bark  of  trees.'  Doc.  Hist  of  the 
State  of  New  York,   O'Callaghan,   1850. 

"The  next  reference  I  find  is  that  of  Tienhoven,  of  date  1650,  in 
which  he  gives  the  following  details  of  the  methods  of  construction 
of  the  first  buildings: 

"  'Information  Relative  to  Taking  up  Land  in  New  Netherland,  by 
Cornelius  Van  Tienhoven,  secretary  of  the  province,   1650: 

Of  the  Building  of  Houses  at  First 

"  "Those  in  New  Netherland  and  especially  in  New  England  who 
have  no  means  to  build  farm  houses  at  first  according  to  their  wishes, 
dig  a  square  pit  in  the  ground,  cellar  fashion,  6  or  7  feet  deep,  as 
long  and  as  broad  as  they  think  proper,  case  the  earth  inside  with  wood 
all  round  the  wall,  and  line  the  wood  with  the  bark  of  trees  or  some- 
thing else  to  prevent  the  caving  in  of  the  earth,  floor  this  cellar  with 
plank  and  wainscot  it  overhead  for  a  ceiling,  raise  a  roof  of  spars 
clear  up  and  cover  the  spars  with  bark  or  green  sods,  so  that  they  can 
live  drj^  and  warm  in  these  houses  with  their  entire  families  for  two, 
three  or  four  years,  it  being  understood  that  partitions  are  run  through 
those  cellars  which  are  adapted  to  the  size  of  the  family.  The  wealthy 
and  principal  men  of  New  England,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Colonies, 
commenced  their  first  dwelling  houses  in  this  fashion,'  etc. 

"Finally,  the  official  reports  of  Governors  of  this  state  in  1678  and 
1687,  show  that  the  residents  here  had  developed  a  settled  policy  of 
constructing  stone  and  brick  dwellings. 

"Doc.  Hist.  N.  Y.     O'Callaghan,  1850,  Vol.  I.. 

"Gov.  Andros'  report,   1678: 

"  'Our  buildings  most  wood,  some  lately  stone  and  brick,  good  country 
houses  and  strong  of  their  severall  kindes.' 

"Gov.   Dongan's  report,  22  Feb.,    1687: 

"  'The  buildings  in  New  York  and  Albany  are  generally  of  stone  and 
brick.' 

"  'In  the  country  the  houses  are  mostly  new  l)uilt,  having  two  or 
three  rooms  to  a  floor.'  " 

The  above  notes,  and  an  inference  from  the  journal  quoted 
later,  of  the  Dutch  travelers.  Bankers  and  Sluyter,  speaking  of 
the  log  house  as  a  Swedish  and  not  Dutch  construction,  reason- 
ably sho\v  that  the  Dutch  did  not  introduce  the  log  dzvcUing  to 
North  America,  and  it  seems  very  improbable,  though  lacking 
positive  disproof,  that  the  first  Dutch  settlers  had  seen  or  used  log 
houses  in  Holland  before  they  emigrated  to  New  Sweden.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Dutch  fort  or  block  house,   referred  to  bv 


574  ORIGIN  OF  LOG  HOUSES   IX   THE   UNITED  STATES 

Innes,  if  correctly  described  as  of  logs,  would  prove  that  they 
were  familiar  with  the  form  of  construction,  and  may  have  in- 
troduced it  into  New  Amsterdam  (1610),  before  the  Swedes 
reached  the  Delaware  in  1638. 

LOG   DWELLINGS   BUILT   BY   THE   ENGLISH    SETTLERS    IN    NEW 
ENGLAND    AND   VIRGINIA. 

Several  old  log  structures,  called  "Garrison  Houses,"  dated  as 
follows  by  their  owners  or  local  authorities  from  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  still  stand,  1924,  on  or  near  the  south- 
east coast  of  Maine  at  Kittery,  at  Elliot  (Fig.  2,  1734),  at 
Agusta  (Fig.  3,  1750),  at  Winslow  (Figs.  4,  5  and  6),  at  Scot- 
land, near  York,  Me.,  (Fig.  7,  1640),  and  in  New  Hampshire,  at 
Durham  (Fig.  8,  1675),  Dover  (Fig.  9,  1675),  and  Exeter  (Fig. 
10,  1650). 

With  close  cut  corners,  and  often  with  second  story  over- 
hangs, they  are  built  in  rectangular  form,  rarely  as  polygons  (Ft. 
McClary  at  Kittery),  of  logs  neatly  hewn  into  irregular  sized 
rectangles,  narrower  than  high,  laid  horizontally,  never  with 
open  or  luted  joints,  but  built  always  to  fit  close,  log  upon  log, 
though  without  fixed  system  of  corner  interlocking.  The  logs, 
never  notched  and  chamfered,  as  described  later,  are  in  some 
cases,  as  shown,  only  halved  at  the  corners,  in  some  dovetailed 
to  lock  either  continuously  upward,  or  only  in  pairs ;  in  some 
cases  partly  halved  and  partly  dovetailed,  and  in  some  tenoned 
into  vertical  corner  posts. 

It  further  appears  that  though  some  of  these  Garrison  Houses 
have  been  turned  into  dwellings  by  sawing  out  the  original  loop- 
holes, etc..  they  were  not  built  as  dwellings  in  the  first 
place,  but  as  forts.  But  however  we  account  for  the  existence 
of  these  forts  built  by  Englishmen  in  non-English  style,  it  is 
evident  that  if  the  first  New  England  settlers  had  thus  developed 
their  fort  building  into  the  making  of  Jog  dwellings,  at  the  time 
these  log  forts  were  built,  more  old  log  dwellings  should  exist  in 
New  England,  but  all  the  evidence  from  inquiry  and  observa- 
tion, obtained  thus  far,  by  the  writer,  shows  that,  with  two  ex- 
ceptions of  doubtful  age  at  Gloucester,  Mass.,  (Figs.  11  &  12) 
log  dzvellings  of  whatever  date,  are  almost  unknown,  or  unheard 
of,  in  the  region  of  the  early  New  England  settlement. 


Figure  12.  LOG  DWELLING  AT  ROCKPORT,  MASS. 
The  wall  logs,  conceaJed  by  shingles,  are  squared,  and  hewn 
to  fit  close,  as  in  the  Garrison  Houses.  Heated  by  an  ancient 
downstairs  nreplace.  Date  doubtful.  Kindly  photographed 
and  examined  bv  Dr.  Bertram  <iilliland  of  Philadelphia,  in 
1922. 


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ORIGIN   OF  LOG   HOUSES   IX   THE   UNITED  STATES  575 

As  the  published  investigations  of  Dr.  G.  F.  Dow,  in  the 
Bulletin  of  the  New  England  Society  for  the  Preservation  of 
Antiquities,  show,  the  ancient  houses  of  New  England  were 
built  very  rarely  of  stone,  not  of  logs,  but  of  frame  faced  with 
riven  clapboards  or  shingles  lined  or  filled  with  stones,  clay, 
brick,  etc.,  with  chimney  stacks  built  of  stone,  laid  not  in  lime 
and  sand  mortar,  but  clay,  and  sometimes  topped  with  bricks, 
the  latter  laid  in  sand  mortar  mixed  with  lime. 

Further  than  this,  it  seems  also  reasonable  to  suppose  that  if 
log  dwellings  had  been  in  use  in  England,  and  therefore  known 
to  the  builders  of  these  forts,  at  the  time  of  the  American  settle- 
ment, some  log  structures  would  now  remain  standing  in  Britain, 
but  the  writer,  through  correspondence,  has  been  unable  to  hear 
of  anything  more  certain  than  the  following: 

In  an  old  sixteenth  century  description  of  forts  and  dwellings 
then  existing  on  the  Anglo-Scotish  borders  (See  Notes  and 
Queries,  Feb.  1920,  p.  48 )  the  outer  walls  of  very  strong  dwellings 
are  noted,  as  built  for  the  most  part  of  "Greatte  Sware  Oke 
trees,  strongly  bound  and  joyned  together  with  great  tenons  of 
the  same,  so  thyke  mortessed  that  yt  it  would  be  very  hard  to 
break  or  cast  down  any  of  the  said  houses,  etc." 

C.  F.  Innocent,  in  the  "Development  of  English  Building  Con- 
struction," Cambridge.  University  Press.  1916.  p.  109.  not  notic- 
ing the  Anglo-American  log  forts,  but  describing  a  very  old 
church  walled  with  vertical  posts,  at  Greenstead,  in  Essex,  con- 
siders the  Pallisade  method  of  house  construction,  namely. — 
with  walls  built  of  close  set  rows  of  vertical  posts,  as  very  old 
in  England,  but  asserts,  as  before  observed,  "there  is  no  satisfac- 
tory evidence  that  this  form  of  building,  (namely,  the  log  house 
of  Scandinavian  type),  was  ever  in  use  in  England,  in  any  of 
its  forms." 

As  if  to  supplement  this,  we  learn  further  that  the  early  ac- 
counts of  building  operations  of  the  English  settlers  at  James- 
town and  Plymouth,  make  no  mention  of  log  divellings  built  in 
this  way. 

But  giving  due  weight  to  these  significant  facts,  we  must  remem- 
ber that  log  dwellings  are  no  more  significant  of  the  unique  form 
of  wooden  construction  in  question,  than  forts.  It  makes 
no  difiference  whether  the  English  colonists  in  New  England  de- 


576  ORIGIN   OF  LOG   HOUSES   IN   THE  UNITED  STATES 

veloped  their  forts  into  dwellings  or  not,  or  how  they  learned 
the  art,  whether  Innocent  is  wrong,  whether  a  few  log  forts  ex- 
isted in  Britain  in  the  seventeenth  century,  whether  the  quota- 
tions in  the  N.  E.  D.  referring  to  block  houses  in  1512-1538- 
1550^  mean  Log  Forts,  or  whether  the  New  England  immigrants 
learned  the  art  from  Norse  sailors,  brought  with  them  in  their 
ships,  the  forts  stand.  Some,  like  the  Mclntyre  "Garrison"  near 
York.  Me.,  if  built  1640  to  1645,  or  a  year  or  two  after  the  Swedes 
reached  North  America,  others  no  doubt  of  earlier  date,  but  now 
gone,  reasonably  prove  that  the  English  settlers,  several  years 
ahead  of  the  Swedes,  if  not  anticipated  by  the  Dutch  or  French, 
must  have  introduced  the  singular  and  unique  method  described 
by  Vitruvius,  into  North  America. 
Finally,  as  to 

LOG  HOUSES  BUILT  BY  THE  SWEDES  IN  THE  DELAWARE  VALLEY. 

It  is  well  known  that  a  small  Swedish  colony,  preceding  the 
English  settlement  on  the  Delaware  river  (c.  1638),  were 
harassed  by  the  Dutch,  and  finally  absorbed  by  the  English,  and 
although  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they  introduced  their 
familiar  and  very  appropriate  home  method  of  forest  house  con- 
struction at  the  start,  the  documentary  evidence  to  prove  that 
they  built  log  dwellings  on  their  arrival,  seems  strangely  meagre 
and  indefinite.  As  the  only  contemporary  reference  to  the  sub- 
ject found  by  him.  Dr.  Amandus  Johnson,  in  his  "Swedish  Set- 
tlements on  the  Delaware,"  University  of  Pennsylvania  Pub., 
Appleton,  N.  Y.,  1911,  quotes,  page  306,  an  old  Swedish  account 
book  of  1642,  which  shows  that  a  fort  at  New  Gothenberg,  built  in 
1643  was  "made  of  hemlock  beams  laid  one  upon  the  other." 

The  note  refers  to  a  fort,  not  a  dwelling,  while  as  to  dwellings, 
apparently  lacking  contemporary  documents,  he  also  cites,  page 
204,  the  celebrated  travels  into  North  America  written  1748  to 
1751,  by  Peter  Kalm,  professor  of  economics,  at  the  University 
of  Abo,  in  Finland,  quoting,  and  probably  translating  from  the 

4  (Block  Houses  and  Bulwarkes  for  the  safeguard  of  this  Realme),  1577- 
1597  (It  g-roweth  by  the  Block  House  of  Tilberie,  i.  e.  Tilbury-Fort  Essex, 
built  first  as  a  Block  House  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames  by  Henry  VIII,  and 
afterwards  enlarged  Into  a  regular  fortification  by  Charles  II,  Clarke's  Brit- 
ish Gazeteer,  1852),  1615  and  1712  (the  Highway  between  Highgate  Gate- 
house and  Barnet  Block  House). 


Figure    15.      THE    PARKS    LOG    HOUSE.      More  direct  view  of  the  same  gable  shown  in 
Fig.   13,  illustrating  more  cleariy  the  halving  of  the  log  ends. 


Figure  16.  WISMER  LOG  HOUSE.  On  farm  about  three  miles  north- 
west of  Plumstead,  Bucl<s  county.  Pa.  Built  about  1810.  Size  20'  5"  x  24'  3". 
Gable  boarded.  Logs  faced.  Wide  spaced,  squared  at  corners,  notched  and 
chamfered.  Cracks  luted  with  stones  and  clay  plastered  with  lime  and  sand 
mortar.  Steep  slope  to  rear  of  picture,  in  front  of  house.  Second  story  gar- 
ret rafters  show,  4  logs  below  the  plate.  The  insicle  walls  are  plastered  with 
clay  and  straw  keyed  on  riyen  lath.  The  bake  oven  in  ruins  is  seen  at  the 
left  forward  corner.  Photographed  by  the  writer  in  1897.  Delomished  1923. 
The  walls  of  the  cellar,  rising  two  feet  above  the  ground,  and  of  the  smoke 
stack,  are  laid  in  stones  with  clay.  The  basement  cellar  was  partitioned 
originally  into  a  kitchen  left,  and  cold  cellar  right.  First  floor  partitioned 
into  two  rooms,  left,  with  small  2'  8"  fireplace  in  the  smoke  stack,  right,  a  bed 
room :  .second  floor  ditto,  making  two  lacking  fireplaces  under  roof. 

As  an  exception  to  the  general  rule,  and  in  spite  of  the  danger  of  fire, 
the  chimney  stack,  laid  in  stones  and  clay,  is  entirely  inside  the  log  wall,  the 
flue  bending  sideways,  so  as  to  emerge  from  the  roof,  at  the  peak.  Another 
inside  fireplace,  though  differing  in  the  flue,  appears  at  the  Darby  Creek  Log 
House  at  Addingham,  near  Philadelphia,  not  shown.  Otherwise,  the  backs 
of  gable  fireplaces,  seen  in  log  houses,  by  the  writer,  ai'e  built  in  square 
orifices,  cut  in  the  gable  logs,  with  the  flue  only,  kept  entirely  inside  the 
wooden  wall.  The  fire  openings  as  here,  stand  not  in  the  middle  of  the 
gable,  but  to  one  side  of  it,  (i.e.  in  the  corner  of  the  room)  leaving  a  side 
recess  for  a  staircase,  etc.  Their  backs  are  parallel  with  the  gable.  No 
cross  corner  fireplaces  (as  common  in  stone  houses)  were  seen  by  the 
writer,  in  the  log  dwellings. 


Figure  17.  CHALFOXT  LOG  HOUSE.  One  mile  southwest  of  Chalfont, 
Bucks  County,  Pa.  The  log-  wing,  right,  and  stone  wing,  with  chimney  stack, 
left,  were  probably  built  together  in  the  early  19th  century.  Logs  faced  and 
plastered,  with  unusually  wide  cracks,  filled  in  with  stones,  pointed  with  lime 
and  sand  mortar.  Corners  squared,  gable  boarded  above  plate,  below  which 
the  gable  logs  have  been  covered  with  plaster  on  lath.  Second  story  floor  five 
logs  below  plate.  Chimney  brick  topped.  Photogra])hed  by  the  writer  about 
1897,  but  not  studied.     Demolished  about  1910. 


ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  577 

original  Swedish  edition   (En  resa  til  Norra  America  etc.)  pub- 
lished at  Stockholm,  1753  to  1761,  as  follows : 

"The  houses  which  the  Swedes  erected  for  themselves  when  they 
first  came  here  were  very  poor,  a  little  cottage  (here  follows  a  paren- 
thesis containing  the  words  'built  out  of  round  logs')  with  a  door  so 
low  that  it  was  necessary  to  bend  down  when  entering.  As  they  had 
no  windows  with  them,  small  loop  holes  served  the  purpose,  covered 
with  a  sliding  board,  which  could  be  closed  and  opened.  *  *  * 
Clay  was  plastered  into  the  cracks  between  the  logs  on  both  sides  of 
the  walls.  The  fireplaces  were  made  of  granite  boulders,  found  on  the 
hills,  or  in  places  where  there  were  no  stones,  out  of  mere  clay.  The 
bake  oven  was  also  made  inside  of  the  house." 

Another  English  translation  by  John  Reinbold  Foster,  of  the 
above  all  too  vague  account,  written  by  Kalm  one  hundred  and 
twelve  years  after  the  Swedish  settlement,  and  based  not  on  any 
cited  contemporary  documents,  but  on  tradition,  gathered  from 
old  settlers,  appears  in  the  English  edition  of  Kalm's  Travels, 
published  at  Warrington,  England,  by  William  Eyers  in  1770, 
and  reads  as  follows : 

"The  houses  which  the  Swedes  built  when  they  first  settled  here 
vere  very  bad.  The  whole  house  consisted  of  one  little  room,  the  door 
of  which  was  so  low  that  one  was  obliged  to  stoop  in  order  to  get  in. 
As  they  had  brought  no  glass  with  them,  they  were  obliged  to  be  con- 
tented with  little  holes,  before  which  a  little  board  was  fastened.  They 
found  no  moss,  or  at  least  none  which  could  have  been  serviceable  when 
stopping  up  holes  or  cracks  in  the  walls.  They  were  therefore  forced 
to  close  them  both  without  and  within  with  clay.  The  chimneys  were 
made  in  a  corner,  either  with  gray  sandstone,  or  in  places  where  no 
stone  was  to  be  got,  by  mere  clay  which  they  laid  very  thick  in  one 
corner  of  the  house.     The  ovens  for  baking  were  always  in  the  rooms." 

To  the  searcher  for  evidence  as  to  who  introduced  log  houses 
into  North  America,  it  seems  very  unfortunate  that  Kalm,  when 
he  might  have  been  so  clear,  should  be  so  obscure ;  that  when 
stone  houses,  frame  houses,  caves  and  pallisadoed  buildings 
were  in  question,  he  should  have  taken  it  for  granted  that  when 
he  said  "house"  or  "cottage,"  everybody  knew  what  he  meant. 

Further  and  more  definite  testimony  on  this  subject  appears  in 
certain  notes  observed  by  Mr.  H.  M.  Mann,  in  Memoirs  of  the 
Long  Island  Historical  Society,  Vol.  I.  "A  journal  of  a  voyage  to 
New  York,  and  a  tour  in  several  of  the  American  colonies  in 
1679-80,  by  Jasper  Bankers  and  Peter  Sluyter,  of  Wiewerd,  in 
Friesland,  page  172 :" 


578  ORIGIN  OF  LOG  HOUSES   IN   THE  UNITED  STATES 

"Resuming  our  route,  we  arrived  at  the  falls  of  the  South  River 
about  Sunddown,  passing  a  creek  where  a  new  gristmill  was  erected 
(at  falls  of  the  Delaware,  at  the  present  time  Trenton,  N.  J.)  bj^  the 
Quakers,  who  live  hereabouts  in  great  numbers,  and  daily  increase." 

Page  173: 

"This  miller's  house  is  the  highest  up  the  river,  hitherto  inhabited. 
Here  we  had  to  lodge;  and  although  we  were  too  tired  to  eat,  we  had 
to  remain  sitting  upright  the  whole  night,  not  being  able  to  find  room 
enough  to  lie  upon  the  ground.  We  had  a  fire,  however,  but  the 
dwellings  are  so  wretchedly  constructed,  that  if  you  are  not  so  close  to 
the  fire  as  almost  to  burn  j-ourself,  you  cannot  keep  warm,  for  the 
wind  blows  through  them  everywhere.  Most  of  the  English  and  many 
others,  have  their  houses  made  of  nothing  but  clapboards,  as  they  call 
them  there,  in  this  manner;  they  first  make  a  wooden  frame,  the  same 
as  they  do  in  Westphalia,  and  at  Altoona,  but  not  so  strong,  they 
then  split  the  boards  of  clapwood,  so  that  they  are  like  cooper's  pipe 
staves,  except  they  are  not  bent.  These  are  made  very  thin,  with  a 
large  knife,  so  that  the  thickest  end  is  about  a  pinck  (little  finger) 
thick,  and  the  other  is  made  sharp,  like  the  edge  of  a  knife.  They  are 
about  five  or  six  feet  long,  and  are  nailed  on  the  outside  of  the  frame, 
with  the  ends  lapped  over  each  other.  They  are  not  usually  laid  so 
close  together,  as  to  prevent  you  from  sticking  a  finger  between  them, 
in  consequence  either  of  their  not  being  well  joined,  or  the  boards 
being  crooked.  When  it  is  cold  and  windy  the  best  people  plaster 
them  with  clay.  Such  are  most  all  the  English  houses  in  the  country, 
except  those  who  were  built  by  people  of  other  nations.  Now  this 
house  was  new  and  airy;  and  as  the  night  was  very  windy  from  the 
north,  and  extremely  cold  with  clear  moonshine,  I  will  not  readily 
forget  it." 

Page  174: 

"Before  arriving  at  Burlington,  we  stopped  at  the  home  of  one 
Jacob  Hendricks,  from  Holstein,  living  on  this  side.  He  was  an  ac- 
quaintance of  Ephraim,  who  would  have  gone  there  to  lodge,  but  he 
was  not  at  home.  We,  therefore,  rowed  on  to  the  village  in  search  of 
lodgings,  for  it  had  been  dark  all  of  an  hour  or  more;  but  proceeding  a 
little  further,  we  met  this  Jacob  Hendricks,  in  a  canoe  with  hay.  As 
we  were  now  at  the  village,  we  went  up  to  the  ordinary  tavern,  but 
there  were  no  lodgings  to  be  obtained  there,  whereupon  we  reembarked 
in  the  boat,  and  rowed  back  to  Jacob  Hendricks',  who  received  us 
very  kindly,  and  entertained  us  according  to  his  ability.  The  house, 
although  not  much  larger  than  where  we  were  the  last  night,  was 
somewhat  better  and  tighter,  being  made  according  to  the  Swedish 
mode,  and  as  they  (i.e.  the  Swedes,  H.  C.  M.)  usually  build  their 
houses  here,  which  are  block-houses,  being  nothing  else  than  entire 
trees,  split  through  the  middle,  or  squared  out  of  the  rough,  and  placed 
in  the  form  of  a  square,  upon  each  other,  as  high  as  they  wish  to  have 


Figure  18.  PLUMSTEADVILLE  LOG  HOUSE.  About  two  miles  east  of  Plum- 
stead,  Bucks  county,  Pa.  Demolished  about  1900.  German  style,  with  chimney  in  the 
middle.  Two  rooms  downstairs.  Logs  faced,  notched  and  chamfered,  cracks  luted, 
squared  corners,  walls  protected  by  later  lath  and  plaster  weathercoat.  Gable  water 
shed  and  second  story  or  garret  floor  rests  on  plate  beam.  Not  studied  when  photo- 
graphed by   the  writer  in   1897. 


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ORIGIN   OF  LOG   HOUSES   IN   THE   UNITED  STATES  579 

the  house;  the  ends  of  these  timbers  are  let  into  each  other,  about  a 
foot  from  the  ends,  half  of  one  into  half  of  the  other.  The  whole 
structure  is  thus  made,  without  a  nail  or  a  spike.  The  ceiling  and 
roof  do  not  exhibit  much  finer  work,  except  amongst  the  most  careful 
people,  who  have  the  ceiling  planked  and  a  glass  window.  The  doors 
are  wide  enough,  but  very  low,  so  that  you  have  to  stoop  in  entering. 
These  houses  are  quite  tight  and  warm;  but  the  chimney  is  placed  in 
a  corner.  My  comrade  and  myself  had  some  deer  skins,  spread  upon 
the  floor  to  lie  on,  and  we  were,  therefore,  quite  well  ofT,  and  could 
get  some  rest." 

These  valuable  notes  by  two  Dutch  gentlemen,  describing  the 
Delaware  valley  settlements,  near  the  present,  Burlington,  N.  J., 
two  years  before  the  coming  of  Penn,  and  sixteen  years  after  the 
English  conquest,  and  forty-two  years  after  the  Swedish  settle- 
ment, seem  to  prove  first  that  the  log  dzcclliiig,  which  they  describe 
as  a  novelty,  was  not  then  in  common  use,  because  not  so  referred 
to  by  them,  in  New  York  or  Holland,  therefore  that  the  Dutch 
did  not  introduce  it.  Second,  that  the  typical  wooden  English 
dwelling  in  the  Delaware  valley  of  that  time,  1680,  was  of  frame 
clapboarded  while  the  typical  contemporary  Swedish  wooden-dwel- 
ling was  of  logs,  and  hence,  inferably,  that  as  the  Swedes  had  pre- 
ceded the  English  in  settlement,  1638,  they,  and  not  the  English, 
introduced  the  form  of  construction.  Finally,  third  that  if  then, 
or  later,  the  English  built  log  dwellings,  they  learned  the  art  from 
the  Swedes,  as  when  Fiske  Kimball  (Domestic  Architecture  in  the 
American  Colonies,  New  York,  1921)  cites  the  Archives  of  Mary- 
land and  colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  to  prove  that  the 
settlers  w^ere  building  these  log  houses  in  these  colonies  about  1669 
and  1680. 

On  the  other  hand  the  archaeological  evidence  surviving  in  the 
Delaw-are  valley  on  the  subject,  as  herewith  shown,  if  it  lacked  this 
and  other  documentary  proof,  would  be  sadly  deficient.  While 
in  New  England,  several  of  the  old  log  forts  are,  as  showai,  rea- 
sonably dated  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  writer  has  been  un- 
able to  find  any  log  structure  of  certain  seventeenth  century 
date,  or  Swedish  construction  in  the  Delaware  region. 

Nevertheless  the  specimens  shown  (Figs.  13  to  21)  either  un- 
dated or  built  in  the  eighteenth  century,  must  be  con- 
sidered as  inheritances  of  the  first  period  of  settlement.  If  so, 
they  are  Swedish,  not  English,  in  origin.  As  here  shown,  or 
observed  by  the  writer,  the  Delaware  valley  log  dwelling  appears, 


580  ORIGIN   OF  LOG   HOUSES  IN   THE   UNITED  STATES 

not  as  a  permanent  home,  carefully  and  elaborately  built,  or  worth 
considering  for  public  use,  but  in  its  cheapest  and  simplest  form, 
as  a  temporary,  careless,  somewhat  despised  makeshift,  soon  dis- 
carded by  the  builders.  The  buildings  appear  as  rectangles,  with 
or  without  cellars,  with  stone  chimneys  set  either  in  the  middle, 
so  as  to  form  two  downstairs  and  two  upstairs  rooms,  or  in- 
serted through  the  logs  at  the  gable,  leaving  an  interior  side-recess 
for  staircases,  etc.,  with  one  room  below  and  one  above.  In  the 
twenty-five  to  thirty  examples  in  the  Delaware  valley  seen,  no 
chimney  fireplaces,  with  one  probably  modern  exception,  were 
found  built  outside  the  log  walls  (modern  southern  pioneer  style) 
and  none  of  wood  or  wicker,  "cat  and  daub."  These  gable  fire- 
places were  generally  built  inside  the  dwelling,  but  not  with  their 
backs  inside  the  logs.  That  is,  their  stone  backs  appear  on  the 
outside,  as  virtical  areas  of  stone  wall,  built  into  square  orifices 
cut  in  the  gable  logs,  and  even  with  the  outside  log  face, 
though  their  ilnes  generally  bend  inward  and  sideways,  within 
the  gable  logs,  so  as  to  leave  the  roof  at  the  peak  (Fig.  16)  or 
more  rarely  as  at  the  old  log  house  at  Addingham  on  Darby 
creek,  kindly  photographed  in  1922  by  Dr.  Gilliland,  but  not 
shown,  emerge  from  one  of  the  roof  slopes,  directly  over  the 
fireplace.  The  interior  fire  openings  seen  were  set,  not  in  the 
middle,  but  at  one  of  the  sides  of  the  gable  (i.e.  in  the  corner  of 
the  room)  thus  leaving  a  side  recess  for  the  staircase,  etc.  No 
cross  corner  fireplaces  (common  in  old  stone  houses)  were  found 
by  the  writer  in  any  of  the  log  hous.es  seen. 

Where  the  floor  rafters  for  the  second  story  were  set  lower 
than  the  "plate"  log,  their  ends,  visible  on  the  outside  of  the 
cabin,  protruded  through  notched  channels  in  the  side  logs.  No 
pyramidal  roofs  as  at  Fort  Halifax  (Fig.  6),  were  seen  on  any 
of  the  Delaware  Valley  Cabins,  where  to  meet  the  thrust  of  the 
A  shaped  roof,  by  receiving  the  notched  bottoms  of  the  roof 
rafters,  the  "plate"  logs  were  notched  on  top.  And  it  appeared, 
that,  as  the  pioneer  could  not  lock  over  these  plate-logs  by  cross 
laid  gable-logs,  since  the  ends  of  the  latter,  would,  in  that  case, 
project  through  his  roof,  he  had  to  halve  to  a  level  and  corner- 
peg  the  plate-log  under  the  gable-log  or  omit  the  latter  alto- 
gether. After  this  the  clapboards  for  the  gables  were  laid 
horizontally  on  vertical   strips  mortised,   or  set  against   battens. 


^^s?***~>^  *— - 


Figure  21.  FRAGMENTS  OF  OLD  LOG  HOUSK  OF  I'XKXOWX  DATK. 
Demolished  about  1900,  at  "The  Bush"  (Furlong),  Bucks  county,  Pa.  Logs 
squared  and  as  originally  placed  (though  not  as  here  shown)  hewn  to  fit  close. 
Very  ingenious  dovetail,  unlike  any  New  England  examples  shown,  throws  the 
water  out  of  the  vomers  both  ways.  An  exactly  similar  example  of  dovetail 
appears  in  the  Gillam  log  house  (probably  early  18th  century)  standing  1920, 
three  miles  southeast  of  Newtown,  Bucks  county.  Pa.,  and  also,  judging  from  a 
photograph,  in  the  Abraham  Lincoln  log  cabin,  built  1831,  now  at  Chicago. 
Though  in  these  latter  the  logs  are  open  laid,  chinked  with  clay  and  stones,  and 
roughly  faced,  but  not  squared.  The  Darby  Creek  Ferry  House  at  Prospect 
Park,  Delaware  county.  Pa.,  of  supposed  date  1698,  examined  by  Dr.  Bertram 
Gilliland,  August  1924,  shows  logs  squared  and  set  close,  but  with  the  far  less 
effective  common  dovetail  often  seen  in  wooden  boxes. 


Figure   23. 
LOG   DWELLING    IX    THE   PROVINCE    OF    UPLAND,    SWEDEN,    1923. 

Showing  gable  above  the  ijlate  level,  in  the  American  style  (rare  in  Sweden). 
Obtained  through  th'^  kindness  of  Dr.  Gustav  Upmark.  of  the  Nordisga  Museet. 
Stockholm,    May    1923. 


ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES  IN   THE  UNITED  STATES  581 

from  the  top  gable  log  to  the  roof  rafters.  The  rafters  in  floors 
and  roofs  were  sometimes  hand  hewn,  sometimes  left  in  the 
round,  and  sometimes  unbarked,  while  in  the  roofs,  which  might 
often  have  been  restorations,  they  sometimes  appeared  mill  sawn 
(i.  e.  after  1740),  though  never,  as  seen  by  the  writer,  set  upon 
a  ridge  pole,  as  described  by  Dodderidge  (Notes  on  the  Settle- 
ment and  Indian  Wars,  by  Joseph  Dodderidge,  Pittsburgh,  1912), 
but  always  side  mortised,  and  pegged  together  at  the  peak.  The 
rectangular  openings  for  doors  and  windows,  sawed  out  after 
the  walls  were  built,  were  found  to  be  framed  with  sections  of 
planks  or  boards  wood-pegged  into  the  log  ends. 

The  wall  logs  were  generally  notched  and  chamfered  at  the 
corners  in  a  style  never  appearing  in  the  New  England  forts 
but  known  in  Sweden,  that  is,  the  pioneer  cut  a  rectangular  notch 
in  the  bottom  of  each  wall-log  at  right  angles  to  the  grain,  and  a 
rectangular  chamfer  with  the  grain  directly  over  said  notch,  on 
the  log-top  forming  in  each  case  a  water  shed,  varying  which,  he 
sometimes  satisfied  himself  with  a  slovenly,  round,  bottom-notch, 
and  no  top-chamfer  at  all.  Nevertheless,  judging  from  the 
writer's  own  observation,  and  the  information  of  the  Rev.  W.  R. 
Deal  of  Doylestown,  Pa.,  who  built  a  log  dwelling  in  Georgia 
about  1901,  the  old  cabin  builder  was  never  so  ignorant  of  his 
craft,  or  so  careless  of  the  future,  as  to  make  a  water  pocket,  to 
rot  the  comer  of  his  house,  by  notching  the  top  of  any  log. 

In  a  few  walls,  the  logs  not  notched  and  chamfered  were  dove- 
tailed, or  flared,  as  in  New  England  (Fig.  21)  and,  as  noticed,  all 
cabins  found  by  the  writer  were  boarded  at  the  gable  above  the 
plate  (rare  in  Sweden,  cf  Figs  22  and  23)  and  none  logged  above 
the  gable  plate,  in  the  common  Swedish  style.  The  wall  logs 
never  appeared  in  sections  or  spliced,  but  always  full  length, 
and  no  cabins  were  found  longer  sided  than  a  long  tree.  With 
rare  exceptions,  the  logs  were  never  squared  as  in  the  New  Eng- 
land forts,  though  nearly  always  somewhat  faced  inside  and 
out.  and  while  the  bark  sometimes  remained  upon  them,  and 
the  log  ends  sometimes  projected  at  the  corners,  the  latter  were 
often  sawed  or  hewn  square,  as  shown  in  the  accompanying 
pictures. 

Compared  to  the  building  of  the  smooth  hewn,  close  fitting 
Northern  forts,  erected  not  to  be  punctured,  scaled,  undermined. 


582  ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES   IX   THE   UXITED  STATES 

or  set  fire  to  by  Indians,  where  each  balk  had  to  be  scrupulously 
notched  with  water-shedding  dovetails  to  fit  its  fellow,  the  evi- 
dence shows  that  the  construction  of  these  Delaware  Valley 
dwellings  was  careless  in  the  extreme.  The  logs  were,  with  few 
exceptions  (cf  Fig.  21),  widely  and  irregularily  spaced,  with 
their  cracks  big  or  little,  straight  or  crooked,  luted  or  filled  in 
with  wooden  chips,  or  stones,  smeared  with  clay,  and  sometimes 
faced  with  lime  and  sand  mortar,  as  never  seen  in  the  New  Eng- 
land forts,  but  as  described  by  Vitruvius,  and  it  is  this  hit  or 
miss  method  which  reduced  the  building  process  of  these  Dela- 
ware Valley  Cabins  from  a  first  class  piece  of  craftsmanship, 
as  on  Northern  Europe,  to  a  quick,  slovenly,  easy  makeshift  that 
never  gained  permanence,  or  found  favor  among  architects,  as  a 
superior  form  of  wooden  house  construction  in  the  United  States. 

In  comparing  these  Delaware  valley  American  log  houses,  with 
those  still  standing  in  Scandinavia,  we  learn  from  recent  corre- 
spondence with  the  National  Norwegian  Museum  at  Christiania, 
and  the  Nordiska  Museet  at  Stockholm,  that  many  of  the  log 
structures  still  standing  in  Scandinavia  are  better  built,  and  far 
more  varied  in  purpose,  than  here,  appearing  as  common  dwell- 
ings, woodmen's  huts,  fine  farm  houses,  with  court  yards  exten- 
sions, and  intermediate  dwellings,  also  as  churches,  bath  houses, 
etc.,  that  many  show  artistic  decorative  features,  room  divisions, 
typical  hallways,  corner  entrances,  corner  fireplaces,  and  roof  over- 
hangs, unknown  here,  that  their  method  of  corner  notching 
(notch  and  chamfer  and  dovetail)  varies  as  here,  that  though  the 
logs  are  sometimes,  if  rarely,  squared  as  in  the  New  England 
forts,  or  faced,  as  in  Pennsylvania  (Figs.  22  and  23),  they  are 
generally  left  in  the  round.  That  the  roofs  are  generally  much 
flatter  in  Sweden  than  here,  that  while  here,  with  few  exceptions, 
the  logs  in  the  dwellings  are  laid  up  with  wide  cracks  or  intervals, 
filled  with  clay,  stones,  etc.,  as  described  by  Vitruvius,  in  Scandi- 
navia, except  rarely  in  grass  sheds,  sawmills,  etc.  (Figs.  24  and 
25),  they  are  carefuHy  hewn  to  fit  close,  and  sometimes  (In  Nor- 
way) made  more  airtight  by  grooving  the  under  sides  of  the  over 
placed  log  and  filling  the  overlay  with  moss,  as  noticed  in  an  old 
Bucks  county  house  described  in  Watson's  Annals,  Edition  1845, 
Vol.  II,  page  100.     (Inf.  Col.  Henry  D.  Paxson.) 

Nevertheless,  the  main  point  is  not  these  details,  but  the  unique 


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ORIGIN  OF  LOG   HOUSES   IN   THE   UNITED  STATES  583 

form  of  construction,  the  forest  house,  namely  the  rectangle  of 
notched  logs  piled  up  horizontally  one  by  one,  without  nails,  con- 
spicuously different  from  rows  of  vertical  posts,  (Pallisados)  or 
horizontal  logs,  mortised  in  the  corner  posts,  or  wicker  huts, 
plastered  with  clay,  or  caves.  This  whether  in  Scandinavia  or 
America,  is  the  same. 

CONCLUSION. 

When  the  preceding  limited  and  deficient  notes  are  weighed, 
it  would  appear  that,  leaving  the  case  of  Canada  as  yet  in  doubt, 
the  art  of  log  construction  was  introduced  into  North  America, 
not  in  the  Delaware  valley,  but  either  in  New  York  or  Virginia 
or  New  England,  not  in  the  form  of  dwellings  but  of  forts  or 
block  houses.  That  in  these  colonies  it  was  not  at  first  carried 
beyond  fort  building.  That  log  dwellings,  while  known  to  the 
Swedes  and  Finns  in  their  native  home  land,  were  introduced  by 
them  a  few  years  later  in  the  Delaware  valley,  as  shown  by  Dr. 
Johnson. 

\\'hen  all  is  summed  up,  it  appears  that  the  oldest  log  struc- 
tures now  standing  in  the  United  States  are  in  Niw  England,  of 
which  the  Mclntyre  "Garrison  House"  near  York,  Me.,  may  be 
the  earliest.  That  the  log  dwellings  now  remaining  in  the  Dela- 
ware valley,  differing  in  detail  from  the  New  England  forts,  are 
survivals  of  the  originals  introduced  by  a  small  colony  of  Swedes, 
soon  after  conquered  and  absorbed  by  the  English,  that  they  rep- 
resent types  still  existing  in  Sweden,  that  the  English  settlers  be- 
gan habitually  to  build  log  dwellings,  not  in  New  England,  but 
as  proved  by  the  notes  of  Dankers  and  Sluyter,  and  as  urged  by 
Kimball  in  the  Delaware  valley,  late  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
after  which  in  the  eighteenth  century,  though  they  never  devel- 
oped the  art  as  in  Sweden,  they  spread  it,  as  a  cheap  typical  uni- 
versally desirable  makeshift,  along  the  entire  western  frontier. 


The  Ferry  Tract  at  New  Hope,  Pennsylvania,  and  Coryell's 
Ferry  in  New  Jersey. 

BY   CAPTAIN   R.    C.    HOLCOMB,    (m.c),    U.    S.    N.,    PHILADELPHIA,    PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,   January   19,    1924.) 

IN  my  paper  read  before  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society 
at  its  New  Hope  meeting  last  October,  (see  page  508  ante) 
I  described  the  Woolrich  tract  of  1,000  acres  of  land,  granted 
by  William  Penn  to  Thomas  Woolrich,  on  part  of  which  the 
borough  of  New  Hope  stands.  Five  hundred  acres  of  that  grant 
were  purchased  June  26,  1717,  by  John  Wells,  Jr.,  son  of  John 
Wells,  both  of  what  was  then  Lower  Dublin  township,  now  a 
part  of  Montgomery  county.  Pa. 

John  Wells,  the  elder,  came  from  Bradfield  Parish,  Berkshire. 
He  married  Olive  Hunt  a  daughter  of  Henry  Hunt  of  Hamp- 
stead-Norris  at  Reading  and  Warboro  Friends  Meeting,  7  mo. 
28th.,  1681.     Seven  children  were  born  of  this  marriage: 

1.  Samuel  Wells,  born  6  mo.  10th  day,  1682,  and  who  died  in 
infancy.  2.  John  Wells,  born  circa,  1684,  and  who  settled  in 
Solebury  township,  on  the  Heath  tract.  3.  Samuel  Wells,  bom 
11  mo.  29th  day,  1687  (Abington  Mo.  Meeting).  He  died  1787, 
having  married  and  had  children,  1  John,  2  Rebecca,  who  mar- 
ried Thomas  Dungan,  and,  3  Ruth,  who  married  David  Thomas. 
4.  Olive  Wells,  bom  1  mo.  18th.  day,  1689-90  (Abington  Mo. 
Meeting).  5.  Rebecca  Wells,  born  12  mo.  26th  day,  1691  (Ab- 
ington Mo.  Meeting).  She  married  first  William  Kitchen  in 
1713  and  second  Thomas  Phillips,  both  of  whom  settled  in  Sole- 
bury.  6.  Moses  Wells,  who  married  Rebecca  Howell  and  re- 
sided in  Lower  Dublin  township.  7.  Lydia  Wells,  who  married 
Richard  Tomlinson  of  Oxford  township. 

The  name  of  the  elder  John,  one  of  the  early  settlers  in  Ox- 
ford township,  appears  on  the  Lower  Dublin  township  tax  list  in 
1693,  he  having  purchased  in  1690  one  hundred  acres  of  land  from 
John  Gordon  agent  for  William  Penn.  He  also  owned,  about 
that  time,  a  tract  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  acres  of  land  in  Ox- 
ford township  which  he  had  bought  from  John  Goodson  and 
Joseph  Paull  (agents  and  attorneys  for  Richard  Corey  and  Ann 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  585 

his  wife  of  London,  in  Kingdom  of  England).  He  sold  the  one 
hundred  acres,  March  3,  1702-3,  to  Evan  Powell.  In  1698  he 
bought  land  of  George  Eaton  and  Henry  Waddy.  He  was  a 
justice  of  common  pleas  1735.  John  Wells,  Sr.,  died  in  1736, 
seized  of  three  hundred  acres  of  land  occupied  by  his  son 
Samuel  Wells.  On  Feb.  7,  1736,  other  heirs  of  John  Wells  exe- 
cuted a  quit  claim  deed  to  Samuel  Wells,  conveying  a  tenement 
and  three  hundred  acres  of  land.  (Phila.  Exemplification  Book 
4,  pg.  605.)  The  elder  John  Wells  and  his  wife,  Olive  Hunt 
Wells,  were  members  of  the  early  Oxford  or  Dublin  meeting  un- 
der the  jurisdiction  of  Abington  Monthly  Meeting.  Under  date 
"ye  23  12  mo,  1690 — Richard  Whitefield  and  John  Wells  ap- 
pointed to  attend  Quarterly  meeting." 

The  heirs  of  Richard  Heath  sold  the  five  hundred  acres  (part 
of  the  ferry  tract),  to  Charles  Brockden,  April  27,  1716,  who  in 
turn  sold  to  Morris  Morris  and  Richard  Walln  April  28,  1716. 
Morris  and  Walln  for  consideration  of  £92  sold  the  north  half 
of  the  one  thousand  acres  to  John  Wells,  carpenter  of  Lower 
Dublin  township,  by  deed  dated  June  26,  1717. 

About  the  time  John  Wells  took  up  his  residence  in  Solebur}% 
John  Reading  died.  Reading  was  one  of  the  New  Jersey  promo- 
tors  for  a  road  now  known  as  the  Old  York  Road.  He  had  inter- 
ested the  inhabitants  of  Solebury  and  Buckingham  in  1711  in  a 
petition  for  a  road  which  was  to  start  from  a  point  opposite  to 
his,  John  Readings,  landing  on  Delaware  river,  and  through  sev- 
eral courses  reach  Philadelphia.  John  Reading  died  the  latter 
part  of  1717,  and  in  1718  John  Wells  obtained  from  the  General 
Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  an  act  granting  him  a  license  to  es- 
tablish a  ferry  for  the  seven  years  next  ensuing,  "for  the  ready 
accommodation  and  passage  of  persons  traveling  from  this  prov- 
ince to  the  Jersies  and  New  York."  The  site  of  this  ferry  was 
about  three  and  a  half  or  four  miles  lower  down  the  river  than 
Reading's  landing,  at  the  present  site  of  Stockton,  New  Jer- 
sey. The  new  ferry  was  operated  from  about  the  present  site  of 
Ferry  street  in  New  Hope,  to  about  the  present  site  of  Ferry 
street  in  Lambertville,  N.  J.,  one  block  below  the  present  Bridge 
streets  in  each  of  these  towns.  A  large  part  of  the  course  of  the 
lower  Old  York  Road  was  through  the  northern  part  of  the  Ferry 
tract.      Shortlv  after   John   Wells   arrived   in   Soleburv,   he   was 


586  FERRY  TRACTS   IN   PEXXSYLVAXIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

joined  by  William  Kitchen,  or  possibly  William  Kitchen  came 
with  him.  It  is  related  of  John  Wells  that  he  met  one  day  at  the 
roadside  this  "young  man"  William  Kitchen  who  was  a  weaver 
by  trade  and  who  was  in  great  distress  of  mind  because  he  covild 
get  no  work.  He  took  the  young  man  home  with  him  and  said : 
"If  thou  wilt  stay  with  me  thou  shall  never  want."  The  acquaint- 
ance thus  begun  is  said  to  have  ripened  into  a  life-long  friendship. 
As  William  Kitchen  had  married  John  Wells'  sister  Rebecca,  in 
Lower  Dublin  township,  some  years  before,  in  1713,  this  tale, 
although  founded  on  tradition,  rather  than  on  fact,  may  serve 
to  give  us  a  better  idea  of  John  Wells  and  his  kindly  and  ac- 
commodating spirit  which  made  him  so  successful  and  popular 
a  ferryman,  that  he  had  no  trouble  in  getting  his  license  renewed 
each  time  he  applied  for  it. 

William  Kitchen  came  from  Lower  Dublin  township,  as  did 
also  several  others  of  the  first  settlers  there.  He  was  a  son  of 
Thomas  Kitchen,  Sr.,  of  Oxford  township,  who  married  Mary 
Mace  (widow)  at  Oxford  Meeting,  8th.  day  of  ye  10th.  mo. 
1685.  This  appears  to  have  been  his  second  marriage,  as  he  is 
called  Thomas  senior,  which  indicates  that  there  was  a  Thomas, 
Jr.,  and  so  there  was.  The  name  of  Thomas  Kitchen.  Sr.,  ap- 
pears oftenest  in  the  records  of  Abington  Meeting  as  a  witness 
to  marriages.  He  was  a  witness  to  the  marriages  of  Richard 
Worrell  and  Rachel  May.  11th  day  6  mo.  1685 ;  of  Edward  Eaton 
and  Ann  Kerby,  and  of  Thomas  Kimber  and  Elizabeth  Chalkley, 
26  day  8  mo.  1686.  Thomas  Holme  (Penn's  surveyor  general), 
was  also  a  witness  at  that  marriage.  The  elder  Thomas  died  in 
1694,  and  it  is  recorded  that  he  was  buried  at  Oxford,  near 
Tacony  bridge,  "ye  15th  of  ye  10th  mo.,  1694."  Thomas  Kitchen, 
Jr.,  of  Lower  Dublin  township,  died  during  the  summer  of  1706. 
His  will,  dated  16th,  July,  1706,  was  recorded  August  24,  1706. 
and  bequeathed  all  his  property  real  and  personal  to  his  wife 
Ann.  William  Kitchen  appears  to  have  been  a  half  brother  of 
Thomas  Kitchen,  Jr.,  he  was  born  in  1690  and  married  Rebecca 
Wells,  a  daughter  of  John  Wells,  Sr.,  in  1713.  In  the  year  1721 
William  Kitchen  purchased  from  John  Wells,  his  brother-in-law, 
a  tract  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres  along  the  north  side  of  the 
ferry  tract  and  built  a  house  near  the  bank  of  the  river.  On 
Julv  18,  1723.  William  Kitchen  wrote  his  will  mentioning  therein 


FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  587 

his  wife  Rebecca  and  his  children  Thomas,  \\'ilham,  Ruth,  Mary 
and  Olive.  All  of  which  indicates  the  fiction  of  the  alleged  road- 
side meeting  sometime,  after  the  year  1717,  of  John  Wells  with 
the  much  distressed  young  weaver. 

Some  authorities  say  that  John  Wells  was  a  batchelor.  But 
as  he  mentions  his  wife  jNIary  in  his  will,  we  will  have  to  take  his 
word  that  he  was  married.  When  he  wrote  his  will  in  1748  his 
wife  was  dead  and  he  left  all  of  his  property  to  relatives,  as 
there  were  no  children.  His  wife  is  believed  to  have  been  Mary 
Norton,  a  daughter  of  Richard  Norton. 

About  the  year  1726,  John  Wells  again  applied  for  and  was 
granted  a  ferry  license  for  a  further  term  of  seven  years.  In  the 
year  of  1722,  one  Samuel  Coate  purchased  the  landing  on  the 
New  Jersey  side  opposite  to  Wells  ferry.  Samuel  Coate  does  not 
appear  to  have  ever  applied  to  the  West  Jersey  Assembly  for  a  li- 
cense. He  died  in  1723  and  his  son,  John  Coate,  applied  for  and 
obtained  a  license  to  operate  a  ferry,  which  is  dated  April  30,  1726. 
About  the  time  John  \\'ells  came  to  Solebury  a  small  settlement 
of  Quakers  had  located  on  the  New  Jersey  side  of  the  river  op- 
posite to  what  is  now  the  ferry  tract.  The  earliest  settler  was 
John  Holcombe,  a  brother  of  the  Jacob  Holcombe  who  purchased 
the  Mill  tract  in  1712.  John  Holcombe  had  settled  on  the  West 
New  Jersey  shore  in  1705 ;  other  quakers  who  settled  there  later, 
were  John  Comfort,  who  lived  on  a  part  of  the  Holcombe  tract, 
and  Samuel  Coate,  who  located  on  the  river  bank  just  below 
Holcombe  Island.  Further  back  was  a  growing  settlement  of  the 
Dutch  who  had  emigrated  up  the  Rarita-n  river  to  the  southern 
part  of  Somerset  county  and  along  the  north  side  of  Neshanic 
mountain. 

At  the  time  the  Old  York  Road  was  proposed  there  were  very 
few  settlers  in  W^est  Jersey  north  of  the  Hopewell  bounds.  The 
Adlord  Bowde  purchase  of  1688,  extended  as  far  north  as  Read- 
ings landing  at  Stockton.  The  Lotting  purchase  of  1708,  carried 
the  bounds  only  a  little  further,  and  the  W^est  Jersey  Society's 
Great  tract,  purchased  in  1711,  opened  up  a  larger  district  still 
further  up  the  river.  Pioneer  settlers  were  penetrating  the  wil- 
derness, establishing  their  scattered  settlements.  These  settle- 
ments made  an  increasing  demand  for  a  ferry.    On  the  2  mo.  12, 


588  FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

1733,  the  following  minute  is  made  in  the  Pennsylvania  Minute 
Book  V : 

"John  Wells  having  at  a  considerable  expense  erected  and  maintained 
a  ferry  over  Delaware  River  in  the  Upper  Parts  of  Bucks  Co.  for 
which  he  has  been  favored  with  the  Governor's  License  during  pleasure 
or  until  further  orders,  now  applies  to  the  Prop'ry  for  his  Grant  to  the 
same  being  recommended  by  Jere's  Langhorne,  Matthew  Hughes  and 
others  as  an  honest  Person  fit  for  that  purpose.  The  Prop'ry  is  pleased 
to  grant  him  the  same  for  7  years  for  such  consideration  and  under 
such  restrictions  as  may  appear  reasonable."  (Penn.  Archives  3  series 
Vol.  I.) 

Wells  it  seems  wanted  a  grant,  but  he  got  a  license  with  "re- 
strictions" for  "a  consideration,"  of  forty  shillings  payable  at  the 
Pennsbury  Manor  in  March  of  each  year.  (Harrisburg  Pat. 
Book  A  6,  pg.  185.)  At  about  the  same  time  Emanuel  Coryell, 
a  newcomer  to  Hunterdon  county,  West  Jersey,  had  applied  for 
a  grant  of  the  ferry  licensed  to  John  Coates  in  1726,  he  having 
purchased  the  John  Coates  land  from  John  Purcell  Feb.  8,  1732. 
On  January  7,  1733,  King  George  II,  granted  to  his  "loving  sub- 
ject (Emanuel  Coryell)  the  sole  privilege  of  keeping  a  ferry  at 
the  placed  called  Coates  ferry  opposite  Wells  ferry  the  Pennsyl- 
vania side  and  three  miles  up  and  three  miles  down  the  said  river 
Delaware,  and  to  his  heirs  and  assigns  forever."  It  was  a  good 
generous  grant  such  as  this  that  John  Wells  wanted,  but  did  not 
get.  His  license  gave  him  the  privilege  of  returning  at  the  end  of 
another  seven  years  and  again  making  "reasonable"  terms  com- 
mensurate to  the  improvement  of  traffic  over  the  ferry.  But  Wells 
continued  to  operate  the  ferry  another  seven  years.  He  had  the  re- 
spect of  the  community  and  on  Dec.  1,  1738,  was  appointed  a 
justice  of  peace.  Up  until  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  the  only 
one  in  the  township  who  possessed  and  paid  a  tax  on  a  so-called 
"riding  chair."  He  died  in  1748  and  lies  buried  in  a  little  grave- 
yard in  a  field  a  few  yards  from  the  south  boundary  of  Old  York 
Road  on  the  hillside  above  Suggan  Road.  The  wall  of  the  grave- 
yard has  crumbled  away  and  the  enclosure  is  now  overgrown 
with  large  trees.  On  Oct.  29,  1745,  shortly  before  his  death,  John 
Wells  sold  for  £70  to  Benjamin  Canby  (then  the  owner  of  the 
Heath  mill),  all  of  his  land  fronting  upon  the  Delaware  river, 
comprising  in  all  two  hundred  and  fifty-six  and  three-fourth 
acres.    At  that  time  \\'ells  was  in  possession  of  practically  all  the 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  589 

river  front  of  the  original  Woolrich  tract.  On  April  20,  1734,  he 
had  purchased  from  Anthony  jMorris  and  Phebe,  his  wife,  and 
Thomas  Canby  and  Jane,  his  wife,  a  tract  of  one  hundred  acres, 
which  began  at  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Spring  run  and  extended 
to  the  line  of  the  Manor  of  the  Highlands.  ( Phila  Book  F,  Vol. 
VII,  pg.  329.)  That  tract  was  described  in  the  deed  to  Benjamin 
Canby,  as  extending  from  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Spring  run, 
north  60  deg.  W.  52  p.  by  land  of  Anthony  Morris  and  Benjamin 
Canby,  and  by  the  same  south  12  deg.  W.'  about  215  p.  to  the  line 
of  the  Manor  of  Highlands,  thence  by  the  said  line  100  p.  to  the 
river. 

Opposite  this  tract  in  the  Delaware  river  are  the  rapids  now 
known  as  Wells  Falls.  This  tract  and  two  others  comprised  the 
land  sold  to  Benjamin  Canby  in  1745.  Another  part  of  the  tract, 
sold  to  Benjamin  Canby,  comprised  land  bought  by  John  Wells 
of  Thomas  Kitchen,  blacksmith,  Dec.  28,  1739.  That  was  prob- 
ably a  part  of  the  tract  John  Wells  sold  to  William  Kitchen,  the 
father  of  Thomas,  in  1721.  It  is  described  as  a  tract  fronting  on 
Delaware  river  forty-five  perches  and  extending  back  eighty-three 
perches,  containing  twenty-one  and  three-fourths  acres,  and 
bounded  on  the  eastward  by  the  river  Delaware,  northward  by 
the  land  of  Tobias  Dymock,  deceased,  westerly  by  lands  of  Ben- 
jamin Canby  and  to  the  southward  by  Wells  tract  containing  the 
ferry-site.  This  latter  tract  with  the  ferry-site  was  also  included 
in  this  sale  of  1745,  and  contained  thereon  the  ferry  tavern, 
which  Wells  had  maintained  since  the  earliest  days  of  the  ferry. 
In  Oct.,  1727,  upon  recommendation  of  the  inhabitants  of  Sole- 
bury,  the  court  had  been  asked  to  nominate  John  Wells,  who  kept 
the  ferry,  to  keep  a  public  house  and  therein  retail  strong  liquors. 
In  the  year  1730  when  he  made  an  application  to  have  his  licence 
renewed  Wells  asked  to  be  allowed  "to  retail  rum  and  other  spirits 
by  any  quantity  less  than  thirty  gallons."  It  must  have  been  a 
long  time  between  drinks  on  the  Old  York  Road  in  those  days. 
Bogart's  tavern  at  Buckingham  had  not  secured  a  license,  and 
the  nearest  tavern  in  New  Jersey  was  that  kept  by  Ringo.  The 
tract  is  described  as  containing  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  acres, 
being  part  of  a  tract  that  ]Morris  Morris  and  Susannah,  his  wife, 
and  Richard  Walln  and  Ann,  his  wife,  had  conveyed  to  John 
Wells  by  lease  and  release   dated  June  25   and  26,    1717.     His 


590  FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PEXNSYLVAXIA   AXD   XEVV   JERSEY 

messuage,  tenement,  plantation  and  tract  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  acres  had  a  front  on  the  river  of  eighty-three  perches 
and  extended  back  two  hundred  and  forty  perches  and  one  hun- 
dred and  two  perches  wide  in  the  rear.  Thus  the  ferry  passed 
from  the  possession  of  John  Wells  to  the  possession  of  Benjamin 
Canby.  Wells  still  retained  a  tract  of  one  hundred  and  five  acres 
where  he  lived  at  the  time  of  his  death  and  which  he  bequeathed 
to  William  Kitchen. 

The  will  of  John  Wells  of  Solebury  township,  yeoman,  is  dated 
July  16,  1748,  proved  Jan.  28,  1748-9.  To  William  Kitchen  of 
Solebury,  weaver  (son  of  William  Kitchen  previously  mentioned), 
he  gives  the  one  hundred  and  five  acres  I  live  on  in  Solebury 
township.  To  John  Wells,  son  of  brother  Samuel  Wells  of 
Philadelphia  county,  £100.  Brother  Moses  Wells  of  Lower  Dub- 
lin, Philadelphia  county,  his  son  Moses,  and  other  children  are 
mentioned.  Job  Noble  of  Warminster  township,  blacksmith,  £50. 
Lydia  Tomlinson,  wife  of  Richard  Tomlinson,  of  Philadelphia 
county,  and  their  children,  John  Tomlinson  excepted.  Brother 
Samuel  Wells'  son  John  excepted.  Olive  Heed  of  Solebury  and 
children  of  hers  by  John  Heed,  deceased.  John  Norton  of  Bucks 
county,  schoolmaster,  Aaron  and  Thomas  Phillips  (children  of 
Rebecca  (Wells)  Kitchen,  widow  of  William  Kitchen,  Sr.,  who 
married  Thomas  Phillips)  sons  of  Thomas.  Moses  Kitchen,  son 
of  Thomas.  William  Kitchen  to  wall  up  my  graveyard  with  stone 
and  lime.     Memo,  added  to  the  will : 

"My  wife  Mary  requested  that  Mary  daughter  of  John  Heed  and 
Mary  daughter  of  Paul  Kester  have  doz.  Diaper  Napkins  and  two 
Diaper  Table  Clothes  to  be  equally  divided." 

The  descendants  of  William  Kitchen  continued  to  reside  in  the 
vicinity  of  New  Hope  and  along  the  w^estern  end  of  the  ferry 
tract  for  several  generations.  The  one  hundred  and  fifty  acre 
tract  purchased  from  John  Wells  by  the  elder  William  Kitchen 
in  1721  was  thirty-six  perches  wide  and  extended  from  the  Logan 
line  to  the  Delaware  river,  and  was  along  the  northern  border  of 
the  tract.  William  Kitchen  left  all  his  real  property  to  his  .son, 
Thomas  Kitchen,  who  sold  a  part  of  his  tract  containing  forty- 
eight  acres  and  ninety-six  perches  to  William  Magill  July  10,  1741. 
The  land  sold  Magill  was  the  western  part  of  the  tract.  He  also 
sold  to  John  ^^^ells   Dec.  28,    1739,   a  tract   of   twentv-one   and 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA   AND   NEW   JERSEY  591 

three-fourth  acres  with  a  frontage  on  Delaware  river.  \\'iniam 
Kitchen,  his  brother,  came  into  possession  of  another  part  of  the 
Wells  tract,  which  upon  his  death,  in  1796,  passed  by  will  to  his 
son  David.  David  Kitchen  by  will,  made  in  1809,  bequeathed  all 
his  land  to  his  nephew  John  Kitchen,  Jr.  John  Kitchen  by  his 
will  dated  11th  mo.  30,  1868,  bequeathed  to  his  son  Howard  and 
daughters  Sarah,  Rachel  and  Ann.  Howard  Kitchen  died  in 
1887  and  the  property  soon  after  passed  from  the  family. 

\Mlliam  Kitchen,  second,  was  a  large  man  physically  and  ac- 
quired a  good  deal  of  property  in  the  original  Woolrich  tract. 
John  ^^'ells  left  him  one  hundred  and  five  acres  on  his  death,  but 
subsequently  he  came  into  possession  of  other  property,  among 
which  was  the  Heath  mill,  purchased  from  Phillip  Atkinson.  May 
20.  1762.  On  June  10.  1762,  he  sold  it  to  Samuel  Crook,  retain- 
ing, however,  some  of  the  property  that  adjoined  his  land. 

Benjamin  Canby  in  the  year  1745  succeeded  John  Wells  as  the 
owner,  not  only  of  the  ferry  tract,  but  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
river  front  of  what  had  comprised  the  Woolrich  tract.  Benjamin 
Canby  became  interested  in  an  iron  works  which  he  mentions  in 
his  will  in  these  words:  "It  is  also  my  Desire  that  my  Exr's 
shall  make  a  Discreet  Tryall  of  the  Ironworks  or  any  other  part 
of  mv  Estate  and  finding  they  are  Profitable  to  my  Wife  and 
Children  upon  a  Strict  Examination  of  accounts  Yearly"  etc. 
The  iron-works  referred  to  appears  to  have  consisted  of  a  large 
water  hammer  and  two  water  driven  bellows  located  upon  a  tract 
early  known  as  the  "Forge  tract,"  and  later  known  as  the  "Saw 
Mill  Lot."  This  tract  consisted  of  an  irregularly  bounded  lot  of 
about  ten  acres  lying  between  the  Great  Spring  run  and  the  York 
Road.  The  property  finally  fell  into  the  hands  of  William  Maris 
who  built  "Cintra,"  near  the  York  Road  boundarv\  It  seems  that 
there  were  many  persons  interested  in  this  Forge  lot,  and  who 
owned  such  parts  of  it  as  one-fourth,  one-sixth,  one-third,  etc. 
Benjamin  Canby  still  had  an  interest  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
because  when  Anne,  daughter  of  Benjamin  Canby,  then  the  wife 
of  Joseph  Wetherill,  conveyed  the  ferry  tract,  then  containing 
one  hundred  and  six  acres,  to  John  Coryell,  the  deed,  dated 
May  19,  1764  (D.  B.  48.  p.  511),  reserves  thereout  the  ten  acres 
known  as  the  forge  lot.  George  Ely,  who  had  purchased  an  in- 
terest in  the   ferry  tract   in   Benjamin   Canby's  life   time,   under 


592  FERRY  TRACTS   IX   PENNSYLVANIA   AND   NEW   JERSEY 

agreement,  which  Canby  in  his  will  states  had  not  been  com- 
pleted, evidently  owned  a  one-fourth  interest  which  in  Aug.,  1763, 
he  sold  to  Richard  Reading,  together  with  a  tract  fronting  on 
Delaware  river  south  of  the  Great  Spring  run.  The  estate  of 
Richard  Reading  within  the  next  four  years  was  advertised  for 
sale  in  the  Pennsylvania  Chronicle  of  August  31,  1767,  and  in- 
cluded "one  equal  undivided  one-fourth  of  a  forge,  and  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-five  acres  of  land  in  the  township  of  Solebury, 
County  of  Bucks,  Province  of  Pennsylvania,  near  Coryell's 
Ferry."  The  interest  of  Richard  Reading  passed  into  the  posses- 
sion of  John  Cox,  Jr.,  of  Philadelphia,  Thomas  Pryor,  of  Bur- 
lington, N.  J.,  and  James  Janney,  of  New  York,  and  they  on 
Jan.  19,  1769,  disposed  of  Richard  Reading's  one-fourth  interest 
to  Henry  Dennis  and  Benjamin  and  Thomas  Canby.  Dennis 
having  conveyed  his  interest  to  the  Canby  brothers  in  1770,  they, 
March  15,  1771  (D.  B.  122,  p.  103)  conveyed  the  one-fourth  in- 
terest to  Ichabod  Wilkinson  and  Joseph  Wilkinson  of  Solebury, 
forge  masters. 

Ichabod  Wilkinson  on  that  same  date,  March  15,  1771,  pur- 
chased a  one-third  interest  in  the  forge  lot  from  the  executors 
of  William  Plumstead,  who  in  turn  had  purchased  this  interest 
from  Thomas  Yeardly,  Jr.,  Jan.  31,  1751,  the  latter  being  one  of 
the  executors  of  Benjamin  Canby.  The  interest  of  the  Wilkin- 
sons in  this  forge  tract  dates  to  1760,  or  earlier,  as  mention  is 
made  of  a  conveyance  dated  April  25.  1760,  to  Ichabod  \\'ilkin- 
son  for  a  one-sixth  interest.  (D.  B.  25,  p.  404;  D.  B.  28,  p.  103; 
D.  B.  30,  p.  74.)  They  were  forge  masters  and  probably  operated 
the  forge.  Later  on  the  Wilkinsons  sold  their  interest  in  the 
forge  lot  and  with  this  sale  the  name  changed.  The  executors  of 
Joseph  W^ilkinson  by  deed  dated  Nov.  3,  1798  (D.  B.  30,  p.  74), 
conveyed  the  forge  lot,  "now  known  as  the  Sawmill  lot,"  contain- 
ing ten  acres  five  perches  to  John  Poor  of  Philadelphia,  principal 
of  the  incorporated  institution  called  the  Young  Ladies 
Academy  of  Philadelphia,  and  Robert  Thompson  Neeley,  and 
they  in  turn  conveyed  it  to  John  Beaumont,  March  26,  1804, 
who  by  deed  dated  Aug.  14,  1821,  conveyed  the  forge  or  sawmill 
lot  to  William  Maris. 

It  has  already  been  stated  (See  The  Tean  Mill  and  its  Early 
Owners)  that  what  is  now  known  as  the  Parrv  mill,  was  built  by 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PEXXSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  593 

Philip  Atkinson  about  1761,  on  a  twenty-four  acre  tract,  and  at 
that  time  an  agreement  was  made  between  Atkinson  and  William 
Pettit  for  the  privilege  of  the  stream  of  water  running  through 
the  sawmill  lot,  which  was  then  the  next  lot  adjoining,  '"to  erect 
and  build  thereon  a  water  grist  mill."  And  it  so  happened  that 
a  law  suit  later  resulted  over  the  respective  water  rights  of  Ben- 
jamin Parry  and  William  Maris  during  which  several  affidavits 
were  taken.  The  following  affidavit  of  Cornelius  Coryell  shows 
the  traditional  antiquity  of  the  Atkinson  or  Parry  mill-site,  and 
also  the  antiquity  and  character  of  the  forge : 

"Cornelius  Coryell,  Senr  aged  88  years,  and  upwards,  was  by  the 
mutual  consent  of  Benjamin  Parry  and  W.  Maris  examined  touching 
their  respective  water  rights  etc.,  who  deposeth  and  saith.  That  he  re- 
members the  property  now  owned  and  occupied  by  Benj.  Parry  as  a 
Grist  Mill  for  upwards  of  80  years  and  at  that  time  there  was  a  Saw 
Mill  on  said  property,  and  that  the  first  water  works  which  were  erected 
on  the  property  which  is  now  owned  and  occupied  by  W.  Maris 
known  formerly  by  the  name  of  the  "Forge  Property"  was  about  78 
years  ago — there  was  attached  to  the  forge  one  hammer  wheel  and  two 
bellows  wheels  one  of  the  bellows  wheels  was  on  the  outside  &  south 
side  of  the  building — the  water  of  one  of  the  wheels  (the  hammer 
wheel)  in  the  inside  of  the  forge  ran  under  the  other  wheel  and  out  of 
the  same  tail  race  and  further  saith  not. 

CON'L  CORYELL. 

Swore  &  subscribed  before  me  at  New  Hope  Sept.  25,  1821. 
In   testimony   whereof   I   have   hereunto   set   my   hand    &   affixed    my 
notorial  seal  the  day  and  year  last  aforesaid. 

Lewis   S.    Coryell, 

Notary    Public." 

It  w^ould  seem  probable  that  the  forge  was  built  some  time 
between  1745  and  1748,  the  former  the  date  Canby  purchased  of 
W'ells,  and  the  latter  the  date  of  Canby's  death.  The  mill  was 
built  in  1761.  There  might  of  course  have  been  a  mill  there  be- 
fore that  date  (1741  as  stated  in  the  affidavit),  but  if  this  were 
true  there  would  have  been  no  occasion  for  an  agreement  about 
the  water-right  between  Philip  Atkinson  and  William  Pettit. 

The  inventory  of  the  estate  of  Benjamin  Canby  helps  to  throw 
some  light  upon  the  forge  and  where  the  supply  of  iron  came 
from.  The  inventory  shows  inter  alia:  "A  negro  in  partnership 
with  Sarah  Coryell"  this  negro  I  am  inclined  to  believe  was  em- 
ployed at  the  ferry,  as  Emanuel  Coryell  had  a  number  of  ne- 


594  FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVAXIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

groes  probably  used  for  the  same  purpose.  Then  comes  a  list 
of  things  in  partnership  with  Joseph  Shippen  including  two  ne- 
groes, Ephriam  and  Pompy ;  two  coal  carts  and  two  other  carts ; 
one  anvil  in  the  Jerseys ;  one  ton  of  pigs  in  the  Jerseys ;  four  tons 
of  pigs;  five  hundred  wt.  of  anconys;  a  parcell  of  coals,  and  five 
hundred  wt.  of  iron  pt.  worked  and  a  parcel  of  blooms.  Then 
follows  a  list  of  items,  "All  his  own."  It  is  the  Edward  Shippen 
who  was  in  partnership  with  Canby,  who  excites  our  interest. 
The  anvil  and  a  part  of  the  pig  iron  in  "the  Jerseys"  would  in- 
dicate that  their  interests  led  in  that  direction.  And  then  again 
in  a  deed  by  the  executors  of  Joseph  Wilkinson  (one  of  the 
later  forge  owners,  D.  B.  30,  p.  74),  reference  is  made  to  a  deed 
from  Joseph  Shippen  to  George  Ely  dated  March  20,  1762,  con- 
veying one-sixth  interest  in  the  forge  lot. 

Joseph  Shippen  was  a  son  of  Dr.  William  Shippen,  Sr.,  a  mem- 
ber of  Continental  Congress.  William  Shippen,  Sr.,  had  pur- 
chased of  Jonathan  Robeson  a  tract  of  ten  thousand  acres  of  land 
in  West  Jersey  about  four  miles  from  the  present  town  of  Bel- 
videre,  where  Robeson  had  built  a  blast  furnace  in  1749.  William 
Shippen  placed  his  son,  Joseph  Shippen,  in  charge  of  the  Ox- 
ford furnace,  as  this  Jersey  plant  was  called,  and  for  thirty  years 
Joseph  Shippen  lived  there  with  his  family,  in  the  large  stone 
house  which  came  to  be  known  as  the  Shippen  Manor  house. 
The  evidence  therefore  seems  to  point  to  the  fact  that  this  old 
forge  at  New  Hope  was  supplied  with  pig  iron  from  Oxford 
furnace  "over  in  the  Jerseys." 

Canby  died  three  years  after  his  purchase  of  the  ferry  tract 
from  Wells,  but  before  his  death  the  property  came  into  posses- 
sion of  George  Ely  of  Amwell,  N.  J.  Ely  succeeded  Canby  as 
proprietor  of  the  ferry  tavern  and  also  operated  the  ferry.  He 
was  a  son  of  George  and  Jane  Pettit  Ely  of  Trenton.  He  was 
born  at  Trenton  about  1706.  He  married  first  Mary  Prout,  and 
second  Sarah  (Tunison)  Coryell,  widow  of  Emanuel  Coryell. 
John  Wells,  Emanuel  Coryell,  and  Benjamin  Canby  all  early 
proprietors  of  the  ferry  died  about  1748.  Canby  mentioned  in  his 
will  that  there  was  a  defect  "between  George  Ely  and  me  concern- 
ing the  premises  where  the  said  Ely  now  lives  by  reason  of  Lease 
not  being  completed,  and  that  it  may  and  shall  be  lawful  for  my 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  595 

executors  to  enter  into  the  premises  and  dispose  of  them  after 
giving  notice  to  the  said  Ely  three  months." 

On  the  1st  of  2  mo.,  1751,  David  Kinsey  and  Sarah  (Yardley) 
Canby,  Benjamin  Canby's  widow,  proposed  their  intentions  of 
marriage,  and  early  in  that  year  they  were  married,  both  of  them 
being  members  of  the  Buckingham  Meeting,  and  almost  im- 
mediately after  the  marriage  we  find  David  Kinsey  supplanting 
George  Ely  as  the  ferryman,  and  as  the  proprietor  of  the  ferry 
tavern.  On  March  15,  1753,  we  find  him  petitioning  for  a  li- 
cense to  keep  the  ferry  tavern.  Later  on  George  Ely  came  into 
possession  of  four  hundred  and  sixty-eight  acres  of  land  for- 
merly belonging  to  Emanuel  Coryell,  in  New  Jersey,  which  com- 
prised the  lands  of  John  Coryell  consisting  of  three  hundred  and 
ninety-eight  acres,  and  the  lands  allotted  to  Abraham  Coryell  at 
the  ferry,  and  which  at  the  time  Ely  bought  them  were  in  posses- 
sion of  Philip  Atkinson  and  his  wife,  who  was  Sarah,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Emanuel  Coryell.  She  was  not  of  age  on  Oct.  10,  1760,  at 
the  time  the  arbitrators  divided  her  father's  estate,  and  she  chose 
her  brother  Cornelius  as  her  guardian  until  June  7,  1764,  when 
she  would  reach  her  twenty-first  birthday.  She  married  first 
Philip  Atkinson,  Nov.  5.  1760,  by  whom  she  had  four  children 
namely:  1.  Hannah,  b.  1  mo.  6  da.  1762,  who  married  Joseph 
Gray.  2.  Sarah,  b.  8'mo.  2  da.  1763,  and  who  died  9  mo.  27  da. 
1835.  3.  John,  b.  2  mo.  13  da.  1766,  died  young.  4.  Thomas,  b. 
2  mo.  13  da.  1766,  and  who  married  Hannah  Prall  dau.  of  Abram 
Prall.  Sarah  (Coryell)  Atkinson  married  second  John  Ely.  She 
died  Sept.  22,  1821. 

George  Ely  enjoys  the  distinction  of  having  operated  the  tav- 
erns on  both  sides  of  the  river.  The  New  Jersey  tavern  appears 
to  have  been  less  popular  than  the  one  in  Pennsylvania  during  the 
period  prior  to  the  Revolutionary  War. 

About  the  year  1764  John  Coryell,  a  son  of  Emanuel  Coryell 
who  had  obtained  a  license  for  the  ferry  on  the  New  Jersey  side 
of  the  Delaware,  became  interested  in  land  in  the  ferry  tract  of 
Pennsylvania.  In  1764  or  before  this  date  he  purchased  the 
property  known  as  the  Maple  Grove  Farm.  On  the  5th  mo.  9th 
da.  1765,  John  Coryell  purchased  from  Joseph  Wetherall  and 
Annie,  his  wife,  who  was  a  daughter  of  Benjamin  Canby,  a  por- 
tion of  the  ferrv  tract  including  the  ferrv.     Ann  Wetherall  had 


596  FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

inherited  the  property  from  her  father  Benjamin  Canby.  John 
Coryell  also  bought  from  Joseph  Mitchell  property  on  both  sides 
of  the  Upper  York  Road  at  the  crossing  to  Reading's  landing  or 
Howell's  ferry.  The  tract  containing  four  hundred  and  fifty 
acres  and  the  purchase  price  was  £2700.  John  Coryell  operated 
the  lower  ferry  and  maintained  a  tavern  there.  He  obtained  a 
license  to  keep  a  house  of  entertainment  in  Solebury,  Pa.,  in 
June,  1774.  But  he  was  evidently  operating  the  tavern  here  for 
sometime  before  that  date.  Elizabeth  Drinker  in  her  diary  Aug. 
(or  Sept.),  1771,  speaks  of  going  to  Coryell's  tavern  on  the 
York  Road  where  Mr.  Drinker  was  to  "meet  the  commissioners 
for  improving  and  clearing  the  navigation  of  the  river."  That 
Inn  appears  to  have  been  located  on  the  present  site  of  Logan 
inn.  It  was  early  known  as  the  "Ferry  tavern,"  also  as  "Coryells 
Inn"  and  "Beaumont's  tavern."  In  1829  it  was  named  the 
"Logan  House"  by  the  then  landlord,  named  Steel,  and  has  kept 
that  name  or  the  name  Logan  inn  since  that  date. 

The  earlier  tavern  of  Wells  is  believed  to  be  the  building 
diagonally  across  the  River  road  from  the  Logan  Inn.  John  Cory- 
ell was  a  well-known  character  of  the  time.  He  had  a  horse 
named  Valient,  which  he  considered  a  first-class  race  horse.  We 
find,  however,  on  one  occasion  that  his  horse  was  beaten  by  three 
lengths  in  a  race  on  Staten  Island  where  he  ran  against  Mr. 
Waters'  "True  Britain,"  Coryell  losing  his  wager  of  £120.  From 
his  house  at  Coryell's  ferry,  Bucks  county,  he  published  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Gazette  of  January  31.  1765,  an  open  letter  chal- 
lenging Mr.  Waters  to  run  his  horse  again,  against  "Valient." 
Not  long  after  he  came  into  possession  of  the  ferry  tract  the  first 
weekly  stage  coaches  over  the  "Old  York  Road,"  began  their 
weekly  trips,  which  were  advertised  in  both  New  York  and  the 
Philadelphia  papers. 

Many  distinguished  visitors  stopped  at  the  tavern  during  Cory- 
ell's time  and  the  hospitality  of  Coryell  and  his  wife  and  daughters 
was  long  remembered  by  some  travelers  who  saw  fit  to  note  the 
occasion  in  their  diaries.  A  distinguished  gathering  stopped  there 
in  1771,  when  Elizabeth  Drinker,  the  wife  of  Henry  Drinker, 
made  note  of  meeting  her  husband  there,  he  being  one  of 
the  commissioners  for  improving  the  navigation  of  the  Delaware 
river  in  accordance  with  Act  of  the  respective  provincial  Assem- 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PEXXSVLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  597 

blies.  The  intent  being  to  make  the  Delaware  a  common  high- 
way, and  specifically  to  improve  the  navigation  from  the  lower 
part  of  the  falls,  near  Trenton  to  the  river  Lehigh  at  Easton,  the 
residue  of  any  subscription  raised  to  be  applied  to  improve  the 
river  above  Easton.  The  commissioners  jointly  appointed  by  the 
two  states  were :  Joseph  Galloway,  Joseph  Fox,  Michael  Hille- 
gas,  Abel  James.  Samuel  Rhoads,  James  Allen,  Peter  Knight, 
Esquires ;  Daniel  Williams,  Henry  Drinker,  Clement  Biddle. 
Jeremiah  Warder,  the  younger,  Jacob  Bright,  John  Baldwin. 
Richard  Wells,  Gentlemen.  Thomas  Yardley,  Jacob  Orndt,  Peter 
Ketchline,  Harry  Kooken,  Esquires ;  William  Ledley,  Nicholas 
Depui,  son  of  Samuel,  Jacob  Stroud  and  John  Arbo,  Gentlemen. 
The  Honorable  John  Stevens,  James  Parker,  and  Daniel  Cox, 
Esquires,  Samuel  Meredith  and  Robert  Field,  Esquire,  Doctor 
William  Bryant,  Abraham  Hunt.  Timothy  Smith,  Thomas  Lowry. 
Ashur  Mott,  John  Emley  of  Kingwood,  Andrew  Melick,  Robert 
Hoops  and  Matthew  Lowry,  Gentlemen.  These  are  the  names  of 
men  prominent  in  colonial  afifairs,  of  New  Jersey  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, some  of  them  residing  well  up  the  river  in  the  Minisink 
country. 

William  EUery  gives  us  some  idea  of  travel  along  the  Old  York 
Road  during  those  days.  The  following  is  an  extract  from  his 
diary  while  enroute  from  Philadelphia  to  Dighton : 

"3rd  July  1779.  Reached  Tompkins  about  a  mile  on  this  side  the 
Crooked  Billet  and  17  miles  from  Philadelphia,  where  we  had  good 
cofiFee  and  were  well  lodged.  July  4.  Breakfasted  at  Bennets  10  miles 
from  Tompkins.  (This  was  at  Buckingham.)  Dined  at  Cowels  (Cory- 
ells)  upon  fried  Chicken,  boiled  ham  and  Peas.  Our  Landlord  and 
Lady  and  their  well  sized  daughters  were  verj^  obliging.  This  house  is 
7  miles  from  Bennets.  Lodged  at  Cahills  (Quakertown,  N.  J.).  Our 
beds  here  and  at  Tompkins  were  clean  and  not  infected  with  bugs. 
The  day  was  intensely  hot.     This  is  14  miles  from  the  Ferry." 

During  the  Revolutionary  War  the  ferry  tavern  must  have 
been  the  rendezvous  of  many  American  ofihcers.  Washington, 
however,  on  both  occasions  that  he  stopped  at  the  ferry,  made  his 
headquarters  on  the  New  Jersey  side  at  the  house  of  Richard 
Holcombe.  John  Coryell  became  deeply  involved  in  debt,  prob- 
ably as  a  result  of  the  purchases  of  land  of  John  Mitchell  on 
either  side  of  the  upper  York  Road.  The  ferry  property  was  sold 
from  him  in  1785  by  Samuel  Dean,  high  sheriff  of  Bucks  county, 


598  FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

under  a  writ  in  which  Joseph  Mitchell  was  plaintiff  and  John 
Coryell  defendant.  The  sale  was  held  at  the  public  house  of 
David  Forst,  in  Lahaska,  February  14,  the  deed  was  acknowledged 
in  open  court  May  1,  1782.  The  purchaser  was  John  Beaumont 
Upper  Makefield  and  the  price  paid  was  £900.  The  amount 
of  land  surveyed  with  the  ferry  at  that  sale  was  seventy-two 
acres  and  thirty-four  perches,  or  a  little  over  thirty-three  acres 
less  than  the  amount  of  land  purchased  from  the  heirs  of  Ben- 
jamin Canby.  The  name  Coryell's 'Ferry  was  now  doomed  to 
pass  away,  though  both  sides  of  the  river  were  known  by  this 
name.  It  so  happened  that  Benjamin  Parry  and  David  Parry, 
residents  of  Bucks  county,  came  into  possession  of  the  old  Prime 
Hope  mill  on  the  New  Jersey  side  of  the  river,  below  Coryell's 
ferry-landing  and  near  to  Wells  Falls.  The  Prime  Hope  mills 
were  built  sometime  between  1744  and  1747  by  Benjamin  Smith, 
who  gave  them  the  name. 

The  Parrys  also  owned  the  flour  and  sawmill  built  by  Philip 
Atkinson  on  the  Pennsylvania  side  in  1763.  These  mills  are  de- 
scribed in  an  advertisement  appearing  in  the  Nezv  York  Mercury 
of  August  27,  1764. 

"To  Be  Sold. 

"A  complete  new  Grist-Mill,  and  Saw-Mill,  situated  at  Coryell's 
Ferry,  (15  miles  from  Trentown)  up  the  River  Delaware,  that  has  the 
Advantage  of  a  constant  Stream  of  water.  These  Mills  have  12  Feet 
Head  and  Fall  of  Water;  the  Grist-Mill  can  grind  100  Bushels  a  Day, 
and  has  all  the  Conveniency  for  Manufacturing  of  Flour.  The  IMill- 
House  is  a  new  Stone  Building,  about  30  Feet  by  50;  a  Boat  may  dis- 
charge her  Lading  directly  into  the  Mill-House.  The  Situation  of  this 
Mill  is  very  Convenient  for  purchasing  of  Wheat,  as  large  Quantities 
are  brought  down  the  Delaware  from  Minisink,  and  must  pass  by  this 
Mill.  There  is  also  plenty  of  Wheat  to  be  bought  in  the  Neighbor- 
hood, as  it  is  a  plentiful  Wheat  Country.  Flour  can  be  transported 
from  the  Mill,  and  delivered  at  Philadelphia,  at  One  Shilling  and  Six 
Pence  per  Cask,  Freight. 

The  Saw-Mill  will  cut  a  Thousand  Feet  a  Day;  and  Logs  may  be  had 
in  plenty,  at  a  reasonable  Rate. 

These  Mills  have  belonging  to  them,  a  Farm  containing  16  Acres  of 
Land,  with  a  tolerable  good  Well  at  the  Door.  Also,  a  Brew-House, 
Stable,  &c.  Any  Person  inclinable  to  purchase  the  above  described 
Mills,  &c.  may  have  them  at  a  Moderate  Price  by  applying  to  Philip 
Atkinson,  near  the  Premises,  Thomas  Atkinson,  at  Amwell,  or  James 
McEvers,  at  New  York,   on  paying  down   One-Third   of  the   Purchase 


FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PEXXSYLVAXIA  AXD   XEW   JERSEY  599 

Mone}-,  and  the  Remainder  may  be  made  in  easy  Payments,  on  giving 
Securit}-,  if  Required. 

N.B.  In  Case  any  Person  should  prefer  hiring  the  above  Mills.  &c. 
to  purchasing  of  them,  may  be  had  at  a  moderate  Rent,  with  400  pounds 
in  Cash,  free  of  Interest,  for  the  Conveniency  of  purchasing  Wheat." 

This  very  complete  description  of  the  old  mill  property  en- 
ables us  even  now  to  identify  the  old  stone  stable  still  standing 
on  the  northeast  side  of  the  bridge.  It  hints  at  an  increasing 
trade  up  the  river  as  far  as  the  Minisink  country.  The  capacity 
of  the  gristmill  and  of  the  sawmill  are  both  given  and  even  the 
cost  of  transportation  of  flour  to  Philadelphia. 

PROPERTIES  IX   NEW  JERSEY  AND  THEIR  OWNERS. 

The  Holcombe  tract  in  Xew  Jersey,  included  that  part  of  Lam- 
bertville  north  of  the  Bull  line  which  "begins  at  the  river  at  a 
point  near  the  mill,  formerly  Werts  sawmill,  and  passes  just 
south  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  church,  thence  a  little  north  of 
the  old  brewer)',  thence  over  the  hill  to  a  boundary  stone  in  the 
York  Road  and  thence  along  the  east  side  of  Holcombe's  grove  to 
the  distance  of  a  mile  from  the  river."  (P.  A.  Studdiford  D.D. 
Snell,  pg.  268.)  The  land  south  of  this  was  taken  up  in  the 
proprietary  right  of  John  Hutchinson,  who  sold  on  February'  14, 
1701,  a  proprietary  right  to  four  hundred  acres  to  Benjamin  Field. 
Benjamin  Field  then  obtained  a  warrent,  and  these  four  hundred 
acres  were  surveyed  to  him  by  ^^'illiam  Emley,  and  is  duly  re- 
corded in  Revel's  Book  of  Surveys,  page  149.  ^^'illiam  Emley 
describes  the  tract  as  being  above  the  Societies  thirty  thousand 
acres,  and  as  the  date  of  his  order  of  survey,  the  "third  day  of 
the  first  month  Anno  1700-1,"  would  indicate,  it  was  made  prior 
to  the  third  dividend  of  land  above  the  Falls  of  the  Delaware, 
so  frequently  referred  to  as  the  authority  for  the  taking  up  of 
land  about  Lambertville.  Soon  afterwards  Benjamin  Field  died, 
and  his  wife.  Experience  Allen,  on  Ma}-  29.  1702,  sold  this  prop- 
erty to  Isaac  Merrior  and  Nathan  Allen.  On  Aug.  10,  1711,  thev 
sold  to  Robert  Eaton,  who  in  turn  sold  to  Samuel  Coate  bv  deed 
dated  April  16  and  17,  1722.  So  far  as  known  Samuel  Coate 
was  the  first  settler  on  that  tract,  though  it  is  possible  one  Hugh 
Howell  may  have  settled  there  at  one  time.  The  deed  for  John 
Holcombe's  land,  bearing  date  1705,  is  described  as  "beginning 


600  FERRY  TRACTS   IX   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

at  ye  uppermost  corner  of  ye  lands  formerly  Hugh  Howells,  now 
Robert  Eatons  on  the  Delaware  River  side,"  etc.  No  trace  of 
possession  by  Hugh  Howell  is  available  except  in  the  phraseology 
of  the  Holcomb  deed. 

Benjamin  Field  was  such  an  extensive  owner  of  land  within 
old  Amwell  township,  that  some  account  of  him  may  be  desir- 
able. He  came  to  West  Jersey  from  Newtown,  Queens  county. 
Long  Island,  and  settled  in  Chesterfield  1693.  He  married  Ex- 
perience Allen,  born  30th  day  6  mo.,  1669,  at  Sandwith,  Plymouth 
Colony,  New  England.  She  was  a  daughter  of  Jedidiah  Allen 
and  his  wife  Elizabeth,  who  had  settled  at  Shrewsbury,  N.  J., 
about  1684-85.  He  became  possessed  of  several  tracts  of  land 
about  Chesterfield  and  Salem,  N.  J.  On  May  19,  1701,  he  pur- 
chased of  the  West  Jersey  Society  through  their  agent  Andrew 
Hamilton  five  thousand  acres  of  the  Indian  purchase  above  the 
Falls  of  Delaware  made  by  Adlord  Bowde.  That  purchase  com- 
prised two  tracts,  one  of  two  thousand  acres,  described  as  east  of 
the  Society's  land  adjoining  John  Clark,  and  one  for  three  thou- 
sand acres  on  the  southeast  side  of  Wishalmensey  Indian  town  and 
on  the  west  side  of  Hockin  (Alexauken)  Creek,  adjoining  John 
Clark.  These  tracts  were  located  in  the  vicinity  of  Ringoes.  He 
also  purchased  Oct.  16,  1701,  jointly  with  William  Stephenson  of 
Northampton,  Burlington  county,  from  Sarah  Welch  of  Phila- 
delphia, widow  of  William  Welch  of  London,  merchant,  John 
Guest  of  Philadelphia  and  wife  Susanna  Welch,  daughter  of 
Sarah,  one  and  one-half  shares  of  West  Jersey,  except  the  first 
and  second  dividend.  Again  on  Nov.  15,  1701,  he  purchased  from 
Francis  Collins,  bricklayer,  of  Burlington,  one  thousand  acres 
a  part  of  four-sevenths  of  a  share,  bought  of  Edward  Byllinge 
and  trustees  of  which  seven  hundred  and  twenty-eight  acres  ad- 
join the  grantee  on  Caponockon  creek,  the  remaining  two  hundred 
and  seventy-four  acres  to  be  surveyed.  On  April  16,  1701,  a  sur- 
vey for  three  thousand  acres  were  returned  for  Benjamin  Field 
out  of  the  societies  land  near  Wishalimensey  Indian  village,  and 
on  Oct.  2,  1701,  a  survey  was  made  for  three  thousand  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety-three  acres  along  the  line  of  the  Indian  purchase 
above  the  falls  "lately  made  by  the  society  on  Capenockon  Creek 
(Neshanic)  next  Andrew  Hamilton's  and  his  own  former  sur- 
vey."    The  survey   for  Andrew  Hamilton  was  made  by  Revel 


FERRY  TRACTS   IN   PEXXSVLVANIA   AND   NEW   JERSEY  601 

April  15.  1701.  "Ye  Honble  Andrew  Hamilton  Govr  and  Benj. 
Field  of  two  thousand  acres  of  the  West  Jersey  Societies  land, 
in  Adlord  Bowde's  purchase  along  the  first  eastern  line  there  of 
next  John  Clark."  Other  surveys  were  made  for  Field  out  of  this 
same  tract ;  one  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  another  for 
four  hundred  acres  which  latter  survey  comprises  the  lower  part 
of  Lambertville.  The  Collins  Survey  for  seven  hundred  and 
twenty-six  acres  on  Capernockon  Creek  ( Neshanic )  was  re- 
turned Nov.  1,  1701. 

Benjamin  Field  died  early  in  1702,  and  his  wife,  Experience, 
was  named  as  executrix.  In  his  will  he  mentions,  two  thousand 
four  hundred  acres  above  the  Falls  of  Delaware.  He  likewise 
mentions  four  children  namely,  Robert,  Benjamin,  Susanna  and 
Elizabeth,  besides  an  expected  child.  He  likewise  mentions  his 
mother,  Susanna  Field,  and  a  brother,  Ambrose  Field.  It  would 
appear  that  his  wife.  Experience  Allen,  died  shortly  after  her 
husband's  death.  Both  estates  were  administered  by  Nathan 
Allen.  •  Experience  Field  made  her  will  May,  1702,  and  in  it  she 
mentions  her  father,  Jedidiah  Allen,  and  makes  her  brother, 
Nathan  Allen,  executor.  The  death  of  Experience  Field  pre- 
vented her  from  acting  as  executrix  to  her  husband's  estate,  and 
letters  testamentary  were  granted  Nathan  Allen  as  trustee  and 
executor  of  Experience  Field.  The  inventory  of  the  estate  of 
Benjamin  Field  and  his  wife.  Experience  Field,  was  duly  made 
June  29,  1702.  Most  of  the  early  deeds  for  land,  in  and  about 
Ringoes  were  obtained  from  Nathan  Allen. 

Samuel  Coate,  the  settler  on  the  Field  four  hundred  acres  ad- 
joining John  Holcombe's  land,  was  at  the  time  of  the  purchase, 
in  April  1722,  a  resident  of  Springfield,  Burlington  county.  He 
married  Mary  Sanders  at  the  Falls  Monthly  Meeting  in  1695. 
He  died  the  following  year  after  the  purchase.  His  will  is  dated 
Nov.  22,  1723,  and  the  inventory  of  his  estate  was  made  by 
George  Green  and  John  Holcombe  Dec.  23,  1723.  His  wife,  Mary, 
is  mentioned,  and  likewise  his  children,  John,  Henry.  William, 
Marmaduke,  Samuel  and  Elizabeth.  His  will  is  particularly  in- 
teresting, as  it  is  one  of  the  early  documents  mentioning  the  York 
Road,  of  which  the  following  is  extracted : 

"I  give  John  Coate  200  acres  of  my  lands  next  Delaware  River  by 
him   freely  to  be  possessed  and   enjoyed.      I   give   to   Henry   Coate   200 


602  FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PEXXSYLVAXIA  AXD   XEW   JERSEY 

acres  of  my  land  upon  the  hill  where  the  new  "feele"  now  is  Running 
there  unto  the  head  line.  I  give  to  Son  William  Coate  one  hundred 
Acres  of  land  upon  the  hill  next  to  Yoark  Road,  by  him  freely  to  be 
possessed  &  enjoyed." 

John  Coate,  to  whom  his  father  Samuel  Coate  devised  the 
ferry  tract,  made  apphcation  for  and  received  from  Governor 
Burnet  a  license  to  operate  a  ferry  in  Amwell  township,  Hunter- 
don county,  "from  the  landing  commonly  called  Coates  Landing 
across  the  River  Delaware  to  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania." 
This  license  was  signed  by  Governor  W.  Burnet  30  day  of  April 
Anno  1726  (Liber  AAA  of  Commissions,  p.  192).  He  sold  the 
ferry  tract  consisting  of  two  hundred  acres  Oct.  15,  1728,  to 
John  Purcell.  After  possessing  the  property  for  nearly  four 
years  John  Purcell  on  Feb.  8,  1732,  sold  to  Emanuel  Coryell  who 
continued  in  possession  until  his  death.  The  expression  "com- 
irfcnly  called  Coates  landing"  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
Coates  family  had  maintained  a  landing  there  for  some  time 
prior  to  the  granting  of  the  license,  and  further  that  travel  across 
the  river  had  grown  sufficiently  to  warrant  the  employment  of  a 
ferryman  on  both  sides.  The  same  year  that  John  Purcell  sold 
the  two  hundred  acres,  comprising  the  ferry  tract,  to  Emanuel 
Coryell.  John  Coate  sold  a  tract  of  thirty  acres  to  John  Hol- 
combe,  deed  dated  Aug.  4,  1732,  this  latter  tract  being  on  the  south 
side  of  the  York  Road,  fronting  on  what  is  now  Main  street,  so  that 
the  York  Road  which  originally  ran  between  the  Coates  and  the 
Holcombe  tract  was  owned  on  both  sides  of  the  road  by  John 
Holcombe.  In  this  deed  the  road  is  called  "the  King's  Road." 
John  Coate  was,  at  the  latter  date,  a  resident  of  Franklin 
township  where  sometime  between  1728  and  1730  he  had  pur- 
chased land,  east  of  the  Wilson  tract.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Kingwood  Friends  Meeting  as  was  also  his  brother  Henry  Coate. 
All  of  the  Coate  heirs  appear  to  have  sold  their  holdings  in  1728. 
William  Coate  sold  his  land  Feb.  2,  1728.  to  William  Cornwell 
of  Hopewell.  The  following  is  abstracted  from  that  deed  because 
of  the  facts  therein  contained : 

John  Hutchinson  of  Hopewell  in  County  of  Hunterdon  on  14th 
day  of  February  1701  sold  to  Benjamin  Field  one  full  and  un- 
divided 1/12  part  of  one  of  the  seven  undivided  equal  parts.  Field  ob- 
tained warrant  for  survey  of  400  acres  in  the  township  of  Amwell 
"fronting    the    River    Delaware    joining    to    land    now    in    possession    of 


FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  603 

John  Holcomb."  This  land  was  left  by  his  wife  Experience  for  the 
bringing  up  of  children,  and  she  by  deed  dated  29th  of  May  Anno 
1702  sold  to  Isaac  Merrior  (Isaac  Marriott)  and  Nathan  Allen  both  of 
Burlington  all  her  deceased  husband's'  lands.  Allen  and  Merrior  in 
turn  sold  Aug.  10,  1711,  to  Robert  Eaton  the  400  acres.  Robert  Eaton 
by  deed  dated  16  and  17  day  of  April  1722  sold  to  Samuel  Coate  of 
Springfield  in  the  County  of  Burlington  the  400  acres  of  land.  (Record 
of  Deeds  for  Hunterdon  Co.  begun  the  31  day  of  Jan.  1716-17,  p.  Zl . 
Flemington   Records.) 

Isaac  Marriott  was  brother-in-law  to  Benjamin  Field  having 
married  first,  Joyce  OHve  a  sister  of  Samuel  Jennings'  wife,  in 
1681,  and  second  the  2nd  day  12  mo.  1699,  Susannah  Field, 
daughter  of  Robert  and  Susannah  Field,  a  sister  of  Benjamin 
Field. 

W'illiam  Stevenson,  who  had  purchased  the  tract  of  three  thou- 
sand one  hundred  and  ninety-three  acres  in  partnership  with 
Benjamin  Field,  married  Ann  a  daughter  of  Samuel  Jennings 
Nov.  16,  1699,  and  was  related  to  Benjamin  Field  (through  the 
marriage,  of  his  uncle,  Edward  Stevenson,  to  Charity  Field  a 
sister  of  Benjamin  Field). 

The  next  owner  of  the  ferry  tract  was  John  Purcell,  who,  on 
Oct.  15,  1728,  purchased  a  tract  of  two  hundred  acres  from 
John  Coate.  That  tract  had  a  large  frontage  on  the  Delaware 
and  was  the  land  willed  to  John  Coate  by  his  father  Samuel 
Coate.  John  Purcell  appears  to  have  come  to  Amwell  from  the 
southern  part  of  Somerset  county.  Four  children  of  John  and 
Hannah  Pursel  were  baptized  at  the  Readington  Dutch  Reformed 
Church,  namely,  Thomas,  April  9,  1720;  John,  November  5,  1721 ; 
Styntje,  March  1,  1724,  and  Margareth,  October  2,  1726.  A 
Thomas  Purcil  was  a  resident  of  Flatlands,  L.  I.,  where  he  was  an 
appraisor  in  1679,  and  a  patentee  in  Newtown,  L.  I.,  in  1686.  He 
or  some  other  Thomas  Purcell  settled  near  the  Raritan  river  in 
Somerset  county,  N.  J.,  and  had  several  children  baptized  at  the 
Raritan  Dutch  Reformed  church  prior  to  1703.  In  the  year  of 
1710  he  purchased  lot  No.  68  (Elizabeth  bill  in  chancery)  now  in 
the  township  of  Branchburg  north  of  Hollands  Brook,  and  its  east- 
ern boundary  along  the  north  branch  of  the  Raritan.  It  contained 
five  hundred  acres  and  was  purchased  by  Thomas  Purcell  Sept. 
22,  1710,  he  then  being  a  resident  of  Middlesex  county  (Until 
1714  the  Middlesex  courts  had  jurisdiction  over  Somerset  county.) 


604  FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PEXNSVLVAXIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

In  the  year  1719  he  conveyed  the  upper  half  to  his  son  Daniel 
Purcell.  In  1728  the  land  was  sold  to  Guisbert  Krom.  In  the 
year  1732  Daniel  Purcell,  then  a  resident  of  Wrightstown,  Pa., 
executed  a  deed  to  his  brother  Dennis  Purcell,  then  of  Dover, 
"in  the  County  of  Kent  on  Delawar,"  for  a  tract  of  land  in 
Wrightstown  containing  one  hundred  and  nineteen  acres  in  con- 
sideration of  his  one-half  share  in  a  tract  of  two  hundred  and 
forty-eight  acres  "lately  granted  and  confirmed  unto  Thomas 
Pursell.  (father  of  them  sd  Daniell  and  Dennis  Pursell)  from 
William  Allen  of  Philadelphia."  "Denes  Purcell  of  Pennsyl- 
vania," married  Sept.  28,  1728,  Ruth  Cooper,  daughter  of  Henry 
and  Alary  (Buckman)  Cooper  of  Newton,  Bucks  county,  and 
later  settled  in  Bethlehem  township,  Hunterdon  county,  N.  J. 
John  Purcell,  after  he  sold  the  ferry  tract,  also  appears  to  have 
removed  to  Bethlehem  township,  for  in  the  year  1738,  six  years 
after  the  sale  of  the  ferry,  he  is  mentioned  in  account  of  Marma- 
duke  Coate,  administrator  of  the  estate  of  Samuel  Coate,  as  re- 
ceiving together  with  John  Coate,  certain  money  for  expenses 
incurred  during  the  sickness  of  the  deceased  Samuel  Coate,  a 
resident  of  Bethlehem  township.  N.  J.  When  in  the  year  1764, 
John  Emley  was  appointed  land  agent  of  the  Barker  tract  (now 
in  Alexandria  township  and  a  part  of  old  Bethlehem  township 
but  set  off  from  it  in  1765),  he  made  a  list  of  forty-five  tenants 
on  Barkers  land  among  them  being  Dennis  Pursley  (Purcell)  and 
Daniel  Pursley.  That  tract  adjoined  the  large  tract  of  William 
Allen  and  Robert  Turner,  proprietors  of  Union  iron  works. 

John  Purcell  possessed  the  ferry  tract  for  four  years,  and  in 
the  year  1730,  Daniel  Howell,  residing  at  the  Reading  Landing 
(now  Stockton),  endeavored  to  bring  influence  to  bear  to  make 
his  landing  the  route  for  the  crossing  of  the  Old  York  Road. 
Purcell  endeavored  to  check  his  designs  by  petitioning  the  gov- 
ernor of  New  Jersey,  and  the  governor  and  council  of  the  Prov- 
ince of  Pennsylvania.  Out  of  thirty-four  signers  of  his  petition 
twenty-five  of  them  were  residents  of  Hopewell,  some  of  their 
names  being  found  in  the  Hopewell  tax  list  of  1722;  the  sub- 
scribers of  the  Presbyterian  church  of  Maidenhead  and  Hopewell 
1731 ;  and  on  the  voting  list  of  freeholders  for  the  year  1738. 
The  importance  of  this  comment  seems  to  indicate  that  the  traffic 
from  Pennsylvania  to  New  York  at  that  time  passed  over  the 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PEXXSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  605 

road  through  Hopewell  which  joined  the  road  to  New  Brunswick 
at  Rocky  Hill. 

Petition  from  the  files  of  the  State  Library  at  Harrisburg,  Pa. 

Amwell   Township   in   New   Jersey. 
Janry  21st,   1730/1 
To    the    Right    Honorable    the    Governor    of    Pennsylvania    &    to    the 
Honorable  Council: 

The  Humble  Petition  of  Us  the  Inhabitants  in  several  parts  of  your 
neighboring  Province  of  Nova  Caesarea,  Humbly  sheweth  that  where- 
as We  are  assured  a  certain  Person  named  Daniel  Howel  is  endeavor- 
ing to  procure  a  New  Road  thro  your  Province  from  York  to  Phila- 
delphia and  is  for  that  end  preparing  or  has  actually  presented  a  Pe- 
tition to  Your  Excellency.  We  thought  it  therefore  our  Duty  to  in- 
form you  that  the  said  Daniel  Howel  is  acted  only  by  a  Private  Interest 
and  that  He  has  already  got  a  Road  laid  out  here  to  the  extreme  Dan- 
ger of  our  Country  and  in  opposition  to  a  very  good  Road  and  Ferry 
here,  as  well  as  in  your  Excellency's'  Province  of  all  which  We  in  our 
Humble  Petition  informed  our  own  Governor,  and  knowing  farther 
that  your  discountenancing  the  said  Daniel  Howel  will  in  a  great 
measure  defeat  his  pernicious  designs  here.  We  make  bold  humbly  to 
petition  your  Excellency  &  your  Council  to  give  no  encouragement  to 
the  said  evil  Person,  We  being  already  extremely  well  satisfied  with 
the  Road  now  in  Use  to  that  commonly  called  Well's  Ferry  which  we 
esteem  by  much  the  convenientest  both  for  Philadelphia  or  York  ; 
And  your  Petitioners  shall  ever  pray   &c. 

Thomas  Winder  Richard    Palmer 

Barthalma  Anderson  Benjamin    Seaverns 

Abraham   Anderson  Robert  Akers 

Andrew   Anderson  William    Philips 

Joseph    Phillips  Edward  burrows 

Eliakim  Anderson  Caleb   Carman 

Francis  Vannoey  Robert   Combs 

Thomas   Zinzano  Abrham    Larew 

Cornelius   Anderson  Joseph   Combs 

Andrew   Linn  John  pursel 

William    Coxe  John   fidler 

George    (Green)  Thomas    Morrell 

William   Crihfeld  James   Richards 

John    reed  robert  eaton 

Roger    Woolverton  Johaanys    Buys 

John   field  thomas   newman 

Andrew  Milbourne  Jemes    Stought. 

Daniel  Howell  was  a  brother-in-law  of  Gov.  John  Reading,  an 
associate  justice  of  the  court  of  common  pleas,  and  a  captain  of 
the  militia.     He  was  not  without  an  influential  backing  in  the 


606  FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

neighborhood.  His  son  Daniel  married  JuHanna  Holcombe,  a 
daughter  of  John  Holcombe,  a  neighbor  of  John  Purcel,  and 
these  influences  may  in  a  measure  account  for  the  paucity  of 
Amwell  names  in  this  petition.  On  Feb.  8,  1732,  John  Purcel 
sold  to  Emanuel  Coryell  the  ferry  tract  and  removed  to  Bethle- 
hem township. 

Perhaps  no  single  family  has  left  a  greater  impression  on  the 
ferry  community  than  the  descendants  of  Emanuel  Coryell. 
Probably  of  French  Huguenot  extraction,  the  family  appears  to 
have  settled  in  Somerset  county  early  in  the  eighteenth  century 
and  there  we  find  the  name  spelled  Coryell,  Koriel,  Koryel, 
Coriel,  and  Coryal. 

Emanuel  Coryell  seems  to  have  had  at  least  two  brothers, 
namely  David  and  Abraham,  who  like  Emanuel,  appear  to  have 
intermarried  with  the  Dutch  families  who  settled  there.  xA.mong 
the  records  of  the  Dutch  First  Reformed  church  of  Somerville 
appear  the  names  of  children  born  to  David  and  Elsie  Coryell, 
Abraham  and  Catrynte  (Catherine)  and  Emanuel  and  Sarah 
Coryell.  Emanuel  married  Sarah,  the  daughter  of  Cornelius  and 
Neeltje  (Bogaert)  Teunissen,  baptized  April  3,  1706.  Cornelius 
Teunissen  lived  in  the  heart  of  what  is  now  Somerville.  N.  J., 
and  he  was  a  member  of  the  First  Colonial  Assembly  in  1703. 
He  died  in  1731  and  a  "Manuel"  Correll  is  a  witness  to  the  will 
which  is  dated  Aug.  24,  1727.  This  signature  however  does  not 
correspond  in  its  character  to  the  signature  of  the  Emanuel 
Coryell  of  Amwell,  and  is  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  signature, 
possibly  of  some  other  person.  Emanuel  Coryell  appears  to  have 
lived  near  Bound  Brook.  In  the  accounting  of  his  estate  men- 
tion is  made  of  money  for  part  of  a  house  and  lot  at  Bound 
Brook  sold  by  sheriflf.  He  made  his  first  purchase  of  land 
amounting  to  two  hundred  acres  from  John  Purcel,  Feb.  8,  1732, 
but  by  purchases  made  of  Neil  Grant  Jan.  20,  1739;  from  Thomas 
Peget  Oct.  29,  1743,  and  by  other  purchases,  he  increased  his 
holdings  to  one  thousand  and  sixteen  acres  of  which  amount  of 
land  he  died  possessed  early  in  1748.  Upon  purchasing  the  land 
Emanuel  Coryell  applied  for  a  grant  of  the  ferry  and  in  the  year 
1733  King  George  IH  granted  to  Emanuel  Coryell  of  Amwell, 
in  Hunterdon  county,  his  "loving  subject"  the  right  to  operate 


FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  607 

a  ferry  at  the  place  called  Coates  ferry,   New  Jersey,  opposite 
Wells  ferry  on  the  Pennsylvania  side. 

Emanuel  and  Sarah  Coryell  appear  to  have  had  seven  children, 
namely,  John,  Cornelius,  George,  Abraham.  Nellie,  William,  and 
Sarah.  John  was  the  eldest  son  and  was  made  executor  in  his 
father's  will.  William  appears  to  have  died  young,  but  the 
other  boys  lived  to  a  ripe  old  age.  Cornelius  who  appears  to 
have  been  named  after  his  grandfather,  Cornelius  Teunissen,  lived 
to  be  99  years  of  age,  dying  in  July,  1831.  Nellie,  who  appears 
to  have  been  named  from  her  grandmother  also  died  young.  The 
records  of  the  First  Reformed  church  of  Somerville  contain  the 
following  entry:  'June  1,  1740.  Nellje,  daughter  of  Emanuel  and 
Sarah  Coryell,  baptized."  which  would  indicate  that  the  Coryells 
of  Amwell  still  had  ties  of  kinship  and  religion  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, which  was  along  the  course  of  the  old  road  from  the 
Delaware  ferry.  Emanuel  Coryell  does  not  appear  to  have  held 
any  civil  office  during  the  sixteen  years  that  he  operated  the  ferry 
from  the  New  Jersey  side,  and  seems  to  have  been  fully  occupied 
as  a  ferryman  and  tavern-keeper.  He  built  a  stone  tavern  at  the 
ferry,  about  twenty  yards  below  the  present  bridge.  The  old  house, 
with  its  ferrv,  barns,  stable,  orchard  and  meadows,  was  willed  to 
his  wife  Sarah  during  widowhood.  She  did  not  remain  a  widow 
long  for  she  married  George  Ely.  who  had  purchased  from  Ben- 
jamin Canby  the  tavern  and  ferry  on  the  Pennsylvania  side. 
Emanuel  seems  to  have  had  quite  an  establishment,  no  less  than 
eight  negroes  being  listed  in  the  inventory  of  his  estate  taken  Feb. 
3,  1748.  Shortly  before  this  time  there  appeared  an  advertisement 
in  the  Nezv  York  Gazette  revived  in  Weekly  Post  Boy  of  Dec.  28, 
1747,  in  which  John  Coryell  of  Amwell  advertised  for  the  appre- 
hension of  a  negro  man,  named  James  Rouse  who  had  run  away 
from  him  while  he  was  visiting  Albany,  N.  J.  John  Coryell,  as  we 
have  seen,  succeeded  his  father-in-law  George  Ely  in  operating 
the  ferry  and  tavern  on  Pennsylvania  side.  From  his  father's 
estate  he  received  a  tract  of  land  containing  three  hundred  and 
ninety  acres,  being  a  tract  purchased  by  Emanuel  Coryell  from 
Neil  Grant,  his  wife  and  daughter,  who  possessed  the  same 
through  kinship  with  John  Lambert,  to  whom  the  property  was 
surveyed.  This  property  was  situated  one  and  a  half  miles 
south  of  the  ferrv. 


608  FERRY  TRACTS  IX   PENXSYLVAXIA   AXD   XEW   JERSEY 

Some  years  after  the  death  of  Emanuel  Coryell  a  difference 
arose  between  George  Ely  and  Sarah  his  wife  (widow  of  Emanuel 
Coryell)  of  Bucks  county,  Pa.,  John  Coryell,  Cornelius  Coryell, 
George  Coryell,  Abraham  Coryell,  and  Sarah  Coryell.  Five  ar- 
bitrators were  appointed,  namely  Langhorne  Biles,  Jonathan  Ing- 
ham, Peter  Prall,  Azariah  Dunham  and  Pontius  Stelle.  They 
made  their  report  Oct.  10,  1760,  dividing  the  land  consisting  of 
one  thousand  and  sixteen  acres  into  four  tracts.  To  Abraham 
Coryell  (who  appears  to  have  been  named  after  one  of  Emanuel's 
brothers),  they  assigned  lot  No.  1  containing  seventy-five  and 
three-fourths  acres.  This  lot  extended  from  John  Holcombe's 
land  down  the  river  to  the  mouth  of  a  small  creek.  It  contained 
the  plantation  house,  stables,  orchard  and  ferry.  Abraham  does 
not  appear  to  have  resided  on  the  tract  because  shortly  after  the 
decision  of  the  arbitrators,  we  find  it  occupied  by  Philip  Atkin- 
son and  his  wife,  Sarah  (Coryell)  Atkinson,  and  later  by  a 
Robert* Grant,  after  which  it  was  purchased  Oct.,  1765,  by  Abra- 
ham's father-in-law%  George  Ely,  who  served  during  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  first  as  a  captain  in  the  Second  Hunterdon 
county  regiment,  then  as  a  lieutenant-colonel  of  the  third  regi- 
ment and  later  as  its  colonel.  Abraham  lived  in  Kingwood  town- 
ship, N.  J.,  certainly  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life  and  left 
five  children,  namely  Sarah,  George,  John,  Joseph  and  Emanuel. 

To  George  Coryell  was  given  lot  Xo.  2  containing  two  hun- 
dred and  two  and  one-fourth  acres.  The  arbitrators  called  this 
the  Bungtown  lot.  It  was  bounded  by  lands  of  John  Holcombe, 
Gano,  Thomas  Wilson,  and  his  brothers  Cornelius  and  Abraham. 
The  boundary  line  between  George  and  his  brother  Abraham,  near 
the  plantation  house  is  described  as  passing  through  the  "grave- 
yard." This  graveyard  is  now  enclosed  within  the  yard  of  the 
First  Presbyterian  church,  Lambertville,  and  in  it  is  a  most 
curious  coffin  shaped  stone,  one  side  of  which  tells  us  that  Cor- 
•nelius  Coryell  died  July,  1831,  aged  99  years,  the  other  side  that 
Abraham  died  May.  1828.  aged  91  years.  George  Coryell  owned 
a  house  built  in  1748,  and  torn  down  about  1856,  located  near  the 
northwest  corner  of  Main  and  York  streets,  which  during  the 
Revolutionary  \\'ar,  was  used  by  General  Green  as  his  headquar- 
ters, in  1777.  The  house  burned  down  in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth   centurv.     George   was   an   officer   in   the   Continental 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY  609 

Army  at  the  time  he  occupied  the  house.  George  Coryell 
had  however  previous  experience  as  a  military  officer,  having 
served  as  a  lieutenant  in  Peter  Schuyler's  regiment,  raised 
in  1759.  {Nciv  York  Mercury,  April  30,  1759.)  During  the 
Revolutionary  War  he  served  as  a  captain.  The  arbitrators  as- 
signed Lot  No.  3  containing  three  hundred  and  forty  acres  to 
Cornelius  Coryell.  This  lot  lay  between  the  lands  of  George 
Coryell  and  the  tract  of  three  hundred  and  ninety-eight  acres 
known  as  lot  No.  4  assigned  to  John  Coryell  and  previously  men- 
tioned. He  resided  on  Goat  Hill  in  a  house  overlooking  the  old 
road  to  Hopewell  and  valley  below.  He  married  Sallie  Shaw  and 
had  eight  children,  namely,  George,  Mary,  Jacob,  Tunis.  John, 
Eleanor,  Cornelius  and  Joseph.  The  arbitrators  allowed  Sarah 
Coryell  i500,  which  was  to  be  paid  to  her  by  her  brothers,  Abra- 
ham, George  and  Cornelius.  And  in  their  report  they  set  aside 
half  an  acre  of  land  as  a  burying  ground,  where  the  Presbyterian 
church  is  located.  This  was  at  that  time  the  family  burying 
ground. 

About  the  time  John  Coryell  and  his  wife  Elizabeth  removed 
from  their  home  in  Amwell  to  their  new  home  in  Bucks  county 
the  Jersey  property  consisting  of  Lot  No.  4  and  seventy  acres  of 
the  ferry  tract  were  offered  for  sale.  An  advertisement  of  the  sale 
appearing  in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette  of  Nov.  29,  1764.  The 
ferry  property  was  then  in  possession  of  Philip  Atkinson,  who 
had  built  the  mill  at  New  Hope  and  who  had  married  Sarah 
Coryell,  the  daughter  of  Emanuel.  The  advertisement  reads  as 
follows : 

Trenton,  October  26,   1764. 

By  Virtue  of  several  Writs  of  Fieri  Facias  to  me  directed,  will  be 
exposed  to  Sale,  at  public  Vendue,  on  Wednesday,  the  26th  day  of 
December  next,  at  the  Court-House,  in  Trenton,  between  the  Hours  of 
Twelve  and  Five  O'clock  in  the  Afternoon  a  Tract  of  Land  and  Plan- 
tation, containing  398  Acres  (be  it  more  or  less)  with  Houses — Out- 
Houses,  &c.  &c.  situate  in  Amwell,  about  a  Mile  and  an  Half  from 
Coryell's  Ferry,  bounded  by  Lands  late  Benjamin  Smith's  deceased, 
William  Richards  and  others,  now  or  late  in  the  Possession  of  John 
Coryell.  Also  the  Ferry-House,  and  about  70  Acres  of  excellent  low 
land,  fronting  the  River  Delaware,  known  by  the  Name  of  Coryell's 
Ferry;  on  which  are  convenient  Buildings  for  a  Tavern,  and  has  been 
a  noted  and  well  accustomed  House;  a  good  bearing  Orchard,  with 
many  other   Conveniences,   now   in   the   Possession   of   Philip   Atkinson. 


610  FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA  AND   NEW   JERSEY 

The  above  Lands  were  late  the  Estate  of  Emanuel  Coryell  deceased, 
seized  and  taken  in  Execution  at  the  Suit  of  John  Vanmiddleworth 
and  Baltus   Pickle,  and  to  be  sold  by 

SAMUEL  TUCKER,  Sheriff. 
Oct.  30,  1765. 

George  Ely  purchased  all  of  the  above  land  Oct.  20,  1765. 
Not  long  afterwards  the  land  comprising  the  ferry  tract  of 
seventy  acres  was  for  sale  again.  It  had  passed  into  the  posses- 
sion of  Robert  Grant,  and  was  seized  by  the  sheriff  of  Hunterdon 
county  on  execution  at  suit  of  George  Ely.  The  advertisement 
of  its  sale  appeared  in  The  Pennsylvania  Gazette  issue  of  Oct. 
16.  1766,  as  follows : 

Micajah  How  Sheriff  gives  notice  that  on  the  first  of  November 
he  will  sell  the  "well  Accustomed  House  and  Ferry,  known  by  the 
Name  of  Coryell's  Ferry  with  about  70  acres  of  land  of  excellent  low 
Land,  bounded  by  lands  of  George  Coryell  on  the  North,  East  by 
King's  Highway  and  west  by  River  Delaware,  with  a  fine  bearing 
Orchard  thereon;  the  House  is  built  of  stone,  very  convenient  for  a 
Tavern,  and  has  long  been  a  noted  and  well  accustomed  house,  with  a 
good  Barn,  Stables  and  other  Out  Houses  thereon  now  in  possession 
of  Robert  Grant;  late  the  Property  of  Abraham  Coryell,  seized  and 
taken  in  Execution  at  the  suit  of  Geo.  Ely  and  to  be  sold  by  Macajah 
How,  Sheriff." 

The  ferry  tavern  on  the  New  Jersey  side  was  kept  very  ir- 
regularly until  1769-1770,  when  the  regular  stage  route  making 
weekly  trips  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia  on  the  Old 
York  Road  was  established.  The  first  stage  passed  over  the  ferry 
Sept.  26,  1769.  It  was  a  day  of  much  excitement  at  Coryell's 
ferry.  In  the  Pennsylvania  Chronicle  of  July  30- Aug.  6,  1770. 
appears  the  following  advertisement : 

"Whereas  Coryell's  ferry  on  the  New  Jersey  side  has  been  kept  very 
irregular  for  some  time  past,  Capt.  Donald  M' Donald  begs  leave  to 
acquaint  the  public  that  he  now  keeps  the  said  ferry  in  a  regular  man- 
ner and  proper  and  speedy  attendance  will  always  be  given  all  travelers 
&c.  and  good  entertainment  for  man  and  horse. 

DONALD  M'DONALD. 

Thomas  Winder  of  Hopewell  owned  a  very  large  tract  of  land 
lying  between  the  Hopewell  line  and  the  lands  which  came  into 
possession  of  Emanuel  Coryell.  He  was  drowned  in  the  year 
1733  and  left  a  widow.  Rebecca,  who  later  married  Edward  Col- 
lins.    He  also  left  six  children,  namelv   Tohn.   Thomas.   James. 


FERRY  TRACTS  IN   PENNSYLVANIA   AND   NEW   JERSEY  611 

Jane,  Elizabeth,  and  Eleanor.  This  land  was  originally  surveyed 
to  John  Clark  of  Bucks  county,  Pa.,  and  was  purchased  by  him 
from  Wilham  Crouch  and  James  West  of  London  in  seven- 
eights  of  one  hundredth  of  their  proprietary  of  land,  and 
a  land  warrant  was  duly  issued  for  land  in  the  Province  of 
West  New  Jersey  situated  on  the  "north  side  of  a  tract  called  the 
Societies  thirty  thousand  acres."  The  sale  being  made  by  deed 
of  lease  and  release,  dated  Discember  5  and  6,  1700.  The  lands 
of  John  Clark  passed  into  possession  of  Francis  Hague,  who  on 
January  23  and  24,  1726,  sold  to  Thomas  \\'inder.  After  the 
death  of  Thomas  W'inder,  mentioned  above,  the  land  passed  to 
the  possession  of  his  eldest  son  John  and  from  him  to  his  brother 
James.  James  Winder  and  his  wife  Sarah  sold  to  John  Coryell 
March  6,  1764,  two  hundred  and  ninety  acres,  excluding  ten  acres 
previously  sold  to  Benjamin  Smith  January  1,  1744. 

Benjamin  Smith  had  previously  bought  of  Charles  Woolver- 
ton  September  23,  1734,  a  tract  adjoining  this  land  containing 
twelve  and  one-half  acres,  which  Woolverton  had  purchased  of 
Samuel  Green  Dec.  31,  1733.  Benjamin  Smith  is  a  character  of 
unusual  interest  as  he  built  the  first  gristmill  on  the  New  Jersey 
side,  which  he  named  the  Prime  Hope  Mill.  Benjamin  Smith  was 
a  son  of  Daniel  Smith  of  Burlington  and  Mary,  daughter  of 
Matthew  Champion.  Daniel  Smith  had  three  sons  and  one 
daughter,  namely,  Daniel,  Robert,  Benjamin,  and  Katherine,  who 
married  AMlliam  Calinder.  Benjamin  Smith,  the  son  of  Daniel, 
resided  in  Trenton  adjoining  Maurice  Trent,  and  about  the  time 
he  purchased  the  land  from  James  Winder  removed  to  Amwell. 
In  going  security  for  the  administration  of  Thomas  Robertson  of 
New  York,  February  19,  1742,  he  calls  himself  "Benjamin  Smith 
of  Trenton,  merchant,"  and  as  administrator  of  the  will  of  Joseph 
Sergent,  1746,  he  calls  himself  "Benjamin  Smith  of  Amwell." 
He  resided  near  that  mill  and  in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette  of 
September  3,  1747,  we  have  an  advertisement  giving  a  long  list 
of  property  for  sale,  including  a  stone  house  in  Trenton,  land  in 
Hanover  and  Bethlehem  township,  including  one-eighth  part  of 
Sterling  Furnace. 

The  subscriber,  Benjamin  Smith,  describes  himself  as  living  at 
"Prime  Hope  Mills  within  the  county  of  Hunterdon  and  Province 
of  \\'est  New  Jersey."    "Benjamin  Smith  of  Prime  Hope  INIills  in 


612  TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IN   BUCKS  COUNTY 

County  of  Hunterdon,  near  Delaware  River"  offers  the  same 
property  for  sale  in  the  New  York  Post  Boy  of  July  7,  1748.  This 
of  course  indicates  that  the  Prime  Hope  Mills  was  built  before 
the  Atkinson  Mill  at  New  Hope.  This  property  he  devised  to  his 
son  Robert  Smith  by  will  dated  March  31,  1747,  and  it  included 
the  gristmill  and  a  tract  and  twenty-two  and  one-half  acres. 
Daniel  Smith  the  eldest  son  of  Robert  Smith  sold  the  mill  with 
twenty-two  and  one-half  acres  to  Jonathan  Pidcock  December 
30,  1797. 

Benjamin  Smith  also  possessed  another  tract  along  Delaware 
adjoining  the  Coryell  property.  The  Jonathan  Pidcock  who  pur- 
chased this  property  was  a  son  of  Jonathan  Pidcock  and  probably 
grandson  of  John  Pidcock  an  Irish  emigrant  who  early  settled 
at  Neeley's  Mills,  Bucks  county.  Pa.,  and  the  mill  became  locally 
known  as  the  Pidcock  mill. 


Tobacco  and  Its  Culture  in  Bucks  County. 

BY   GREER  SCHEERZ,   BETHLEHEM,   PA. 
(Doylestown   Meeting,   January   19,   1924.) 

(At  the  conclusion  of  the  reading  of  this  paper,  a  practical  demon- 
stration of  old  time  and  of  modern  cigar  making  by  hand  was  given  by 
Martin  Sacks  of  Perkasie,  Bucks  county,  Pa.,  who  rolled  many  cigars 
out  of  Cuban  tobacco  and  presented  them  to  members  attending  the 
meeting.) 

THE  tobacco  plant  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  plants  of 
earth,  it  is  used  by  rich  and  poor  of  all  civilized  nations  and 
also  by  savage  tribes  of  mother  earth. 
For  ages  past  the  culture  and  smoking  of  tobacco  has  existed; 
Mayen  in  his  Geography  of  Plants  says  that  "the  smoking  of  to- 
bacco is  of  great  antiquity  among  the  Chinese."  On  very  old 
sculpture  of  the  Chinese  he  has  observer  the  very  same  shape  of 
tobacco  pipes  as  are  in  use  at  the  present  time.  The  smoking  of 
tobacco  was  found  by  Columbus  to  be  practiced  in  the  West 
Indies  where  the  natives  made  it  into  cylindrical  rolls  wrapped 
in  maize  leaves.     It  has  been  prevalent  from  unknown  antiquity 


TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE  IN   BUCKS   COUNTY  613 

among  the  American  Indians  as  far  north  as  Canada.  It  was 
connected  with  their  worship  and  all  their  important  transac- 
tions ;  thus  the  calumet  or  pipe-of-peace  was  indispensable  to  the 
ratification  of  a  treaty,  and  the  parties  smoking  together  has 
even  greater  significance  of  friendship  than  eating  together  as 
among  other  nations. 

The  most  important  species  is  the  common  tobacco  of  Virginia, 
the  cultivation  of  which  had  extended  to  the  far  north  before  the 
discovery  of  the  new  world  by  Columbus.^  The  culture  of  to- 
bacco began  in  Virginia  with  the  first  settlement  of  the  colony; 
it  is  recorded  that  in  1615  the  gardens,  fields  and  even  the  streets 
of  Jamestown  were  planted  with  tobacco  which  not  only  became 
the  staple  crop,  but  the  principal  currency  of  the  colony  in  1619. 
Ninety  agreeable  maidens,  young  and  incorrupt,  and  in  1621  sixty 
more  maids  of  virtuous  education,  young  and  beautiful,  were 
sent  out  from  London  on  a  marriage  speculation.  The  first  lot 
of  these  ladies  was  bought  by  the  colonists  for  one  hundred  and 
twenty  pounds  of  tobacco  each ;  the  second  lot  brought  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pounds  each. 

By  1622  the  annual  product  of  tobacco  amounted  to  sixty 
thousand  (60,000)  pounds  and  it  more  than  doubled  in  the  next 
twenty  years ;  from  thence  it  spread  over  the  whole  of  the 
United  States. 

Pope  Urban  the  8th  and  Pope  Innocent  the  11th  fulminated 
the  thunders  of  the  Holy  Church  against  the  use  of  tobacco. 
The  priests  and  sultans  of  Turkey  declared  smoking  a  crime. 
Sultan  Amuret  4th  declaring  its  punishment  by  the  most  cruel 
kind  of  death ;  for  instance  the  pipe  stems  of  smokers  were  thrust 
through  the  smokers  nose  in  Turkey.  In  Russia  the  noses  of 
smokers  were  cut  off.  In  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, King  James  1st,  of  England,  issued  a  counter  blast  against 
tobacco  in  which  he  described  its  use  as  a  custom  loathsome  to 
the  eye;  hateful  to  the  nose;  harmful  to  the  body,  dangerous  to 
the  lungs,  and  the  black  stinking  fumes  thereof,  nearest  resem- 
bling the  horrible  Stygian  smoke  of  the  pit  that  -is  bottomless. 

William  C.  Merschon  of  Morrisville,  Bucks  county.  Pa.,  in- 
forms us  that  tobacco  was  first  cultivated  in  Bucks  county  in 

1  The  first  recorded  mention  of  tobacco  in  America  is  in  Columbus's  diary 
for  November  20,  1492. 


614  TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IN   BUCKS   COUNTY 

1855,  which  was  the  crop  planted  by  John  H.  Morris  on  Duck 
Island.  After  it  was  harvested  the  crop  was  sampled  by  Charles 
Muschert  and  pronounced  to  be  of  very  good  quality.  The  fol- 
lowing year  many  of  the  nearby  farmers  began  planting  tobacco, 
the  acreage  varying  from  two  to  sixteen.  This  proved  to  be  an 
excellent  investment.  For  several  years  the  price  ranged  from 
fifteen  cents  to  thirty-five  cents  per  pound.  Mr.  Mushon  grew  a 
field  of  fifteen  acres  of  the  broad  leaf  Lancaster  tobacco  which 
averaged  one  ton  to  the  acre.  After  raising  tobacco  for  a  num- 
ber of  years  the  price  dropped  from  thirty-five  cents  to  four  cents 
per  pound.  Owing  to  the  low  price  to  which  tobacco  had  dropped 
the  farmers  refused  to  plant  and  cultivate  it.  The  crop  of  to- 
bacco was  usually  sold  to  New  York  and  Philadelphia  buyers. 
In  early  spring  the  seed  was  sown  in  hot  beds  and  transplanted 
as  soon  as  the  soil  was  in  condition.  The  plants  were  set  out 
the  same  as  cabbage  plants,  the  planter  using  either  his  finger, 
a  round  pointed  stick,  or  dibble  to  make  the  holes. 

Horace  H.  Burton  of  Tullytown.  Pa.,  who  for  twenty  years 
past  has  been  the  crop  reporter  of  the  United  States  Department 
of  Agriculture,  Lower  District  of  Bucks  county,  says  he  is  forty- 
five  years  of  age,  and  well  remembers  the  last  years  of  the  grow- 
ing of  tobacco  for  commercial  use  in  the  lower  end  of  Bucks 
county,  and  that  he  was  informed  by  Henry  Brenner,  who  is  one 
of  the  oldest  residents  of  Tullytown.  that  after  the  first  planting 
of  tobacco  on  Duck  Island  (which  was  very  fertile  owing  to  the 
overflow  of  the  Delaware  river,  which  after  subsiding  would 
leave  a  thick  covering  of  rich  soil,  so  that  in  planting  tobacco 
there  was  no  other  fertilizing  required),  that  the  tobacco  was 
eagerly  sought  after  and  always  commanded  a  good  price.  Prob- 
ably, the  first  planting  took  place  about  1860  and  the  claim  was 
made  in  the  beginning  that  this  island  was  the  only  piece  of 
ground  in  Bucks  county  where  tobacco  could  be  grown  success- 
fully. He  believes  that  the  first  crop  of  tobacco  was  purchased 
by  Batchelor  Brothers  of  Philadelphia,  who  purchased  the  whole 
crop.  Many  farmers  in  the  lower  end  of  Bucks  county,  especial- 
ly in  the  Morrisville,  Tullytown  and  Falsington  sections  in  1869 
and  1870  began  the  culture  of  tobacco,  the  acreage  of  each  running 
from  eight  to  thirty.  Usually  the  field  in  which  corn  was  grown 
the  previous  year  was  used  to  plant  the  first  crop  of  tobacco. 


TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IN   BUCKS  COUNTY  615 

Rarely  would  a  sod  field  be  plowed  under  for  the  planting  of  to- 
bacco. The  tobacco  was  always  given  a  good  chance  to  grow ; 
good  rich  valley  land  was  usually  selected  and  was  well  manured 
with  good  stable  manure,  applied  during  the  winter  or  early 
spring  just  before  planting. 

Peter  L.  Hager  of  Perkasie,  who  is  now  past  ninety-seven  years 
of  age,  and  good  for  a  walk  of  five  miles,  relates  "when  I  was  a 
boy  of  seven  or  eight  years  of  age,  I  well  remember  that  tobacco 
was  grown  in  upper  Bucks  county,  but  only  in  small  patches. 
When  I  became  thirty-five  years  of  age,  I  planted  my  first  patch 
of  tobacco  on  the  farm  of  Charles  Nace  in  Perkasie  Valley,  near 
the  present  town  of  Perkasie  in  1860;  and  I  had  a  most  beautiful 
crop." 

Josiah  Diehl  of  Perkasie,  formerly  of  the  Diehl  Earthen  Pot- 
tery Company  of  Rockhill,  whose  potteries  have  been  in  existence 
for  over  one  hundred  years,  informs  us  that  prior  to  the  Civil 
War,  his  brother,  William,  planted  a  patch  of  tobacco  in  lower 
Richland  township,  Bucks  county,  and  raised  a  very  fine  crop. 
On  a  certain  Sabbath  afternoon  my  brother  and  I  visited 
him.  When  he  asked  us  whether  we  smoked  we  replied  in  the 
negative,  however,  he  handed  us  each  a  handful  of  home-made 
cigars,  and  told  us  that  there  were  a  number  of  persons  who  had 
raised  small  patches  of  tobacco.  He  asked  me  whether  mother 
had  any  smoking  tobacco  on  hand.  I  replied  that  she  had  just 
finished  her  last  pipe  before  we  left ;  he  then  filled  my  coat  pockets 
with  fine  crushed  tobacco  for  mother's  pipe.  On  the  way  home 
we  tried  to  smoke,  I  have  not  touched  a  cigar  since. 

Abraham  Hendricks  of  Perkasie,  past  ninety-six  years  of  age, 
says  he  very  distinctly  remembers  the  planting  and  raising  of  to- 
bacco in  small  patches  in  upper  Bucks  county  when  a  boy.  He 
does  not  remember  any  large  fields  planted  in  tobacco  as  farmers 
and  others  usually  planted  for  their  own  use  only.  While  there 
were  many  who  made  their  own  cigars,  there  were  also  cigar- 
makers  who  went  from  house  to  house  during  the  winter  months 
and  made  up  the  cigars  the  same  as  the  shoemaker  and  the  tailor 
who  went  from  home  to  home  and  made  up  their  boots  and  shoes 
and  clothing.  These  cigar-makers  made  up  the  cigars  for  one- 
half  share  or  for  a  nominal  cash  price,  the  amount  paid  he  does 
not  remember.     Mr.  Hendricks  planted  his  first  tobacco  when  he 


616  TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IN   BUCKS  COUNTY 

moved  to  a  small  place  near  Bridgetown,  now  Perkasie,  in  1860. 
Mr.  Hendricks  was  a  millwright  and  carpenter  by  trade,  in  the 
building  of  a  certain  house  near  his  home,  Francis  Hendrick  of 
Sellersville,  who  was  known  as  the  foremost  mason  and  plasterer 
in  the  upper  end  of  Bucks  county,  said  to  Mr.  Hendricks,  "Abra- 
ham, the  price  for  masons  and  carpenters  at  this  time  working 
from  sunrise  to  sunset,  is  sixty-five  cents.  I  only  wish  the  price 
per  day  would  go  to  one  dollar  while  you  and  I  are  in  business, 
you  and  I  would  both  become  wealthy." 

Victor  Gross  of  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  a  practical  cigar-maker  who 
for  over  fifty  years  sat  at  the  cigar-makers  bench,  was  for  a 
number  of  years  a  tramp  cigar-maker,  who  tramped  from  Bethle- 
hem to  Nebraska  years  ago,  says  he  believes  himself  to  be  the 
only  cigar-maker  who  can  truthfully  say  that  he  never  took  a 
drop  of  strong  drink.  He  says  that  in  years  gone  by,  farmers  did 
not  plant  large  fields  of  tobacco  as  they  do  now,  but  only  in 
patches ;  after  the  tobacco  was  cured  farmers  would  make  their 
own  smokes,  or  cigar-makers  w^ould  go  from  home  to  home  mak- 
ing up  the  farmers'  cigars  for  halves  or  a  set  price  was  paid  in 
cash  for  the  work.  In  making  up  the  cigars  they  would  put  a 
twist  end  on  the  cigar,  wetting  it  with  the  lips  and  then  using  a 
common  sheep  shear  to  trim  off  the  ends,  instead  of  a  cigar 
knife  as  at  present.  His  father-in-law,  Mr.  Acker  of  Maxa- 
tawney,  Berks  county,  Pa.,  in  1880  had  harvested  a  fine  crop  of 
tobacco  from  his  patch  and  hung  the  bunches  of  tobacco  on  nails 
in  his  wagon  shed.  On  a  visit  to  his  place  he  told  him  that  the 
tobacco  should  be  taken  down  and  the  leaves  cured.  They  took 
down  the  stalks,  separated  the  leaves  from  the  stalk,  placed  them 
flat  on  the  ground,  laying  one  leaf  upon  the  other,  placed  them  in 
a  tight  wooden  box  which  they  buried  in  the  horse  manure  and 
left  it  there  for  nearly  one  year  when  they  took  it  up  from  the 
manure.  Upon  opening  it,  they  found  the  leaves  cured  to  a  per- 
fect beautiful  brown.  He  remained  with  him  until  he  had  made 
up  all  the  tobacco  into  cigars. 

Martin  Sacks,  Sr.,  of  Perkasie,  who  today  will  demonstrate  to 
the  society  the  art  of  making  cigars  by  the  old  and  the  present 
day  method  is  seventy-three  years  of  age  and  has  worked  con- 
tinuously at  the  bench  for  fifty-three  years,  has  seen  the  different 
changes  as  well  as  the  different  modes  of  making  cigars  from  its 


TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IN   BUCKS   COUNTY  617 

inception.  Mr.  Sacks  says  that  tobacco  requires  great  care  in  its 
preparation  and  culture.  The  seed  is  first  sown  in  hot  beds  in 
early  spring,  when  the  soil  is  in  good  condition,  which  must  be 
well  fertilized  with  stable  manure.  The  plants  are  then  trans- 
planted to  the  patch  or  field,  using  the  same  method  as  for  the 
planting  of  cabbage,  planting  them  about  three  feet  apart  each  way. 
When  the  plants  begin  to  grow  search  must  be  made  among  them 
every  morning  for  cut  worms.  After  the  leaves  become  larger 
search  must  be  made  every  day  for  the  large  green  worm,  wdiich 
hides  among  the  leaves.  If  one  of  these  worms  should  be  missed 
it  is  sure  to  eat  a  hole  in  the  leaf  which  destroys  its  value.  After 
the  stalk  has  matured  it  is  cut  down  with  corn  chopper,  knife  or 
hatchet,  and  laid  upon  the  ground.  Horses  and  wagon  are  taken 
into  the  patch  with  a  frame  built  upon  the  body  of  the  wagon 
high  enough  to  prevent  the  ends  of  the  leaves  from  touching  the 
bottom  of  the  body  as  the  stalks  are  suspended  from  iron  poles  or 
lath  running  across  the  frame  of  body.  They  are  taken  to  the 
shed  and  hung  up  to  dry.  There  they  remain  for  about  six  weeks 
and  then  upon  a  damp  day  they  are  taken  down,  the  leaves 
stripped  off  and  assorted  into  three  grades,  namely,  wrappers, 
binders  and  fillers.  They  are  then  tied  in  bundles  and  packed 
separately  in  cases  or  boxes  and  stored  away  to  mature,  which 
takes  from  two  and  one-half  to  three  years,  when  it  is  ready  to 
be  prepared  for  cigar  making.  It  now  has  to  be  cased,  stripped 
and  dried  again  and  made  ready  for  the  table.  Mr.  Sacks  re- 
members the  first  time  tobacco  was  raised  in  Bucks  county,  which 
took  place  on  Duck  Island,  and  later  tobacco  was  raised  extensive- 
ly in  the  lower  end  of  the  county. 

Charles  Scheetz,  my  father,  a  merchant  at  Kellers  Church, 
Bucks  county,  in  1860  purchased  home-made  cigars  for  the  mu- 
nificent sum  of  twelve  and  one-half  cents  per  one  hundred  put 
up  in  bundles  of  one  hundred,  tied  with  brown  manilla  grass  rib- 
bon one-half  inch  wide.  Cigars  were  made  by  farmers  them- 
selves in  the  neighborhood  during  the  winter  months  or  by  travel- 
ing cigar-makers.  These  cigars  retailed  four  for  one  cent,  and 
I  have  known  of  five  being  retailed  for  one  cent.  Cigars  made  of 
Spanish  tobacco  were  sold  at  two  cents  a  piece,  and  those  of  half 
Spanish,  two  cigars  for  one  cent.  For  smoking,  or  pipe  tobacco, 
the  dried  leaves  were  simply  rubbed  between  the  hands  and  thus 


618  TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IX   BUCKS   COUNTY 

made  fine  and  used  for  the  pipe.  He  likewise  told  me  that  in 
the  fifties  he  bought  twenty  barrels  of  good  two-year-old  apple 
whiskey  for  seventeen  cents  per  gallon,  which  he  retailed  at  one 
"phip"  or  six  and  one-fourth  cents  per  quart.  Oft  times  tobacco 
was  recommended  for  its  medicinal  virtue  and  it  was  remarkable 
how  many  subterfuges  and  excuses  were  made  for  women  to 
smoke  which  was  done  openly.  There  was  scarcely  a 
home  to  be  found  where  either  grandfather  or  grandmother  or 
mother  did  not  smoke  the  pipe  and  sometimes  all  three  smoked. 
My  mother  smoked  cigars  and  claimed  it  an  excellent  tonic  for 
womb  trouble.  I  have  heard  many  old  mothers  say  they  used 
the  pipe  for  rheumatism ;  another  would  say  that  it  caused  sound 
sleeping,  and  thus  it  went  on,  I  assure  you  that  many  a  hole  was 
burned  into  the  pockets  of  dresses  by  hot  clay  and  stone  pipes. 
No  apology  however,  is  needed  in  this  twentieth  century  for 
women  and  young  girls  smoking,  for  it  has  become  a  recognized 
habit.  When  a  small  boy  while  clerking  in  a  store,  I  sold 
hundreds  of  clay  pipes  w^ith  reed  stems  for  one  cent  each,  and 
stone  ones  for  two  cents  each.  The  white  clay  pipes  did  not  come 
upon  the  market  until  after  the  Civil  War,  both  straight  and 
crooked  stem  ones  sold  for  one  cent  each. 

TOBACCO  RAISED  IN   EARLY  DAYS  IN   LANCASTER  COUNTY,   PA. 

Henry  Weaver  of  Elizabethtown,  Lancaster  county,  Pa.,  who 
is  eighty-one  years  old  says,  that  in  the  planting  and  raising  of 
tobacco  in  Lancaster  county,  in  early  days,  the  ground  was 
ploughed  in  rows ;  a  forked  stick  was  used  to  mark  spaces.  This 
was  done  by  turning  it  around  in  the  hand.  At  first  a  hole  in 
which  to  place  the  tobacco  plant  was  made  by  the  finger,  later  by 
a  pointed  stick  and  still  later  a  trowel  or  dibble  was  used.  The 
plants  were  set  in  rows  of  hills.  These  rows  were  hoed  at  in- 
tervals and  by  the  time  the  tobacco  was  ready  to  harvest  the 
ground  was  flat.  When  ripe  the  stalks  were  chopped  ofif  with  a 
hatchet  with  a  slanting  blow  and  conveyed  to  shed  or  barn  where 
they  were  tacked  up  on  a  rafter  or  anywhere  in  the  building, 
driving  a  nail  through  the  stalk  to  hold  them.  When  dry  the 
leaves  were  stripped  from  the  stalk;  they  were  not  sorted  as 
now,  the  bottom  or  ground  leaves  were  put  on  one  bunch  and  the 


TOBACCO  AND  ITS   CULTURE   IN   BUCKS   COUNTY  619 

top  leaves  were  placed  on  another  pile  and  then  tied   together 
separately. "" 

TOBACCO   RAISED   IN    LANCASTER   COUNTY   AT    PRESENT    TIME. 

The  ground  is  dug  for  seed  beds  according  to  the  size  re- 
quired by  the  farmer.  These  seed  beds  are  enclosed  by  boards 
twenty-four  inches  high,  two  and  one-half  inches  being  in  the 
ground,  as  a  protection  against  cold  weather.  The  beds  are  then 
steamed  to  kill  all  insects  and  seed  of  weeds  that  may  be  in  the 
beds.  This  is  done  by  a  threshing  engine  generating  steam, 
which  is  led  through  pipes  to  the  bed ;  one  whole  day  is  required 
to  steam  an  average  sized  seed  bed.  After  steaming,  the  ground 
is  made  very  fine  by  raking.  While  this  is  being  done  the  seeds 
are  put  to  sprout ;  they  are  first  wrapped  in  light  weight  muslin 
or  cheese  cloth,  then  wrapped  in  wool  and  dipped  in  water  to 
keep  them  continually  moist,  and  then  placed  in  a  moderately 
warm  place  to  germinate.  This  requires  from  one  week  to  ten 
days  time;  after  they  are  sprouted  a  teaspoonful  of  the  sprouted 
seeds  is  placed  in  a  sprinkling  can  with  water,  and  this  water 
with  the  seeds  is  sprinkled  over  the  seed  bed,  thus  insuring 
uniform  seeding.  A  heavy  covering  of  muslin  is  then  spread 
over  the  bed  to  protect  the  plants  from  the  cold.  This  seeding 
takes  place  during  the  first  week  of  March.  The  beds  must  be 
sprinkled  with  water  about  every  forty-eight  hours. 

The  plants  are  allowed  to  grow  until  they  are  the  size  of  ordi- 
nary cabbage  plants,  which  takes  about  sixty  days  from  time  of 
seeding,  usually  the  first  week  in  June  is  set  apart  for  transplant- 
ing them.  They  are  pulled  very  carefully  and  planted  in  large 
fields  by  a  special  machine,  which  plants  and  waters  them  at  the 
same  time. 

Almost  as  soon  as  planted,  cut  worms  are  liable  to  chew  the 
roots  here  and  there.  This  kills  the  plant  and  another  plant  must 
be  planted  in  its  place.  The  large  green  worms  do  not  appear 
until  the  later  part  of  June.  The  worms  if  allowed  to  eat  the 
tobacco  will  chew  up  a  whole  plant.  This  tobacco  worm  later 
(S.  Quin  que -mac  III  at  a)  becomes  a  huge  moth,  which  when  ma- 
tured resembles  a  humming  bird.  These  in  turn  lay  eggs  on  the 
leaves  of  tobacco  which"  develop  into  worms  as  in  other  crops. 
The   tobacco   field   must  be   continually   cultivated   as   no   weeds 


620  TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE  IX   BUCKS   COUNTY 

should  be  permitted  to  grow.  About  the  first  of  July  the  tobacco 
grower  must  hunt  and  destroy  the  worms  daily.  At  the  same 
time  the  plants  must  be  continually  suckered,  that  is  remove  sprouts 
that  are  shooting  out  and  retarding  the  growth  of  the  plant.  In 
August  it  is  topped,  that  is  the  top  is  pinched  ofif,  and  as  a 
result  the  plant  grows  no  higher,  and  the  strength  grows  into  the 
leaves.  During  the  latter  part  of  August  and  the  early  part  of 
September,  it  is  harvested.  The  plants  are  cut  off  at  the  roots 
by  tobacco  sheares,  the  same  kind  as  those  used  to  trim  hedges, 
but  the  handles  are  longer  so  the  cutter  need  not  stoop  so  low. 
After  they  are  cut  they  are  allowed  to  lay  a  few  minutes  to 
wither.  They  are  then  speared  on  a  lath  about  five  stalks  to  each 
one ;  these  are  placed  on  a  wagon ;  with  a  body  about  forty  inches 
wide  and  the  laths  are  slipped  along  the  frame  work.  About 
forty  of  these  laths,  filled  with  tobacco,  make  a  wagon  load. 
They  are  then  hauled  to  the  sheds  and  hung  up  to  dry.  After 
the  stalks  have  dried (  the  time  varies,  usually  in  November),  it 
is  taken  down  and  put  in  a  damp  cellar.  A  damp  day  is  necessary 
for  this  work  otherwise  the  tobacco  would  crumble.  It  is 
sprinkled  with  water  and  dampened  bags  or  cloths  are  spread 
over  it  to  keep  it  damp.  The  tobacco  is  then  taken  off  of  the 
laths  and  the  leaves  stripped  from  the  stalk.  (The  leaves  must  be 
damp.)  They  are  then  sorted  to  size  and  quality;  the  ground 
leaves  are  the  poorest  in  quality  are  called  wrappers;  a  bundle  or 
"hand"  of  about  fifteen  leaves  is  then  made;  these  are  laid  away 
on  a  pile,  still  being  kept  "damp,  until  a  sufficient  quantity  is 
sorted.  It  is  then  packed  into  bundles  weighing  several  hundred 
pounds  each,  and  wrapped  in  paper.  It  is  then  sold  to  the  to- 
bacco dealer  who  puts  it  in  cases  and  lets  it  sweat. 

These  cases  weigh  about  four  hundred  pounds  when  packed. 
After  sweating  in  the  case  for  a  year  or  longer,  they  are  examined 
and  repacked,  and  then  shipped  to  cigar  manufacturers.  Should 
a  hail  storm  visit  a  tobacco  field  during  July  or  August,  the 
leaves  are  cut  by  the  hail  and  the  grower  receives  half,  and 
often  less  than  half  value  for  his  crop.  One  large  tobacco  stalk 
will  furnish  enough  seed  for  a  field  of  fifteen  acres. 


TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IN   BUCKS  COUNTY  621 

REMARKS  BY  DR.   B.   F.   FACKENTHAL,   JR. 

My  elder  brother  advises  me  that  he  recollects  very  well  that 
in  1863,  Peter  L.  Nicholas  of  Kintnersville,  Bucks  County,  planted 
a  large  field  of  tobacco.  The  field  lying  on  the  north  side  of  Gal- 
lows Run,  partly  in  Durham  and  partly  in  Nockamixon  Townships. 
He  employed  an  old  negro  (whose  only  name  was  Henry),  an 
experienced  tobacco  grower,  who  came  up  from  Virginia  during 
the  war.  Henry  took  entire  charge  of  both  the  cultivation  and 
curing  of  the  crop.  The  tobacco  was  hung  up  in  the  old  factory 
building  which  had  been  erected  by  Abraham  and  Henry  Houpt 
in  1848,  for  the  manufacturing  of  starch,  and  known  as  the 
"Starch  Factory,"  where  the  manufacture  of  starch  was  carried 
on  successfully  for  a  number  of  years,  later  the  building  was 
used  as  a  carriage  factory  and  still  later  by  Alonzo  Nicholas  as  a 
hay  pressing  plant.  The  culture  and  curing  of  the  tobacco  was 
much  the  same  as  that  described  by  Mr.  Scheetz,  except  that  it 
was  seasoned  but  a  few  months,  for  in  the  spring  of  1864  they 
began  to  manufacture  it  into  cigars.  Henry  Souders  and  his  two 
sons,  practical  cigarmakers,  were  employed  regularly  at  this  work, 
William  Lind,  a  Dane,  was  also  employed  there  part  of  the  time, 
as  was  also  Philip  Overpeck,  who  carried  the  cigars  around  in 
large  clothes  baskets  to  find  a  market  for  them.  The  price,  as 
my  brother  recollects,  was  31  cents  per  100  cigars,  of  course  there 
was  no  excise  duty  at  that  time.  The  experiment  was  doubtless 
not  profitable,  at  any  rate  Mr.  Nicholas  did  not  repeat  it  a  sec- 
ond year. 

The  Bucks  County  Intelligencer  of  fifty  years  ago  (1876) 
records  that : 

Four  carloads  of  leaf  tobacco  grown  in  the  Penn's  Manor  vicinity 
were  shipped  from  Tullytown  to  be  sold  in  New  York.  This  tobacco 
was  grown  on  the  farms  of  Daniel  Lauderback,  John  Brooks,  John 
Green  and  Onias  Mershon,  and  was  sold  from  14  to  20  cents  a  pound, 
making  a  total  of  $12,000. 

I  remember  at  later  periods,  when  small  crops  of  tobacco  were 
grown  in  upper  Bucks  County,  but  not  on  a  commercial  scale. 
When  quite  a  lad  the  boys  of  our  neighborhood  had  a  small  to- 
bacco patch  of  their  own,  planted  in  a  field  belonging  to  my 
father.     We  planted,  housed  and  cured  it  in  the  approved  way. 


622  TOBACCO  AND  ITS  CULTURE   IX   BUCKS   COUNTY 

and  during  the  following"  winter  rolled  it  into  cigars.  \\'e 
continued  this  planting  for  several  years.  In  the  year  1887, 
Cooper  &  Hewitt,  owners  of  the  Durham  iron  works,  which  in- 
cluded five  large  farms,  planted  about  ten  acres  of  tobacco,  getting 
the  seed  from  Lancaster.  A  special  shed  was  erected  in  which  to 
house  it.  The  manner  of  cultivation  and  treating  was  about  the 
same  as  that  described  by  Mr.  Scheetz,  though  it  w^as  allowed  but 
one  year  to  cure,  when  it  was  stripped  and  put  in  cases.  Lancaster 
dealers  came  to  Durham  to  inspect  it ;  they  opened  up  the  cases 
and  selected  a  hand  at  random  from  each  case,  and  relied  on  that 
for  the  quality  of  the  entire  case  and  classified  it  accordingly.  This 
crop  was  sold  to  a  Lancaster  dealer  in  1888,  and  we  were  told 
that  it  was  of  specially  good  .quality.  I  had  1,000  cigars  made 
up  by  the  Lancaster  purchaser  to  distribute  among  the  workmen 
at  the  furnace,  and,  of  course,  sent  a  box  to  the  New  York  ofifice 
of  Cooper  &  Hewitt,  which  was  polite  enough  to  say  that  the 
cigars  were  of  good  quality.  The  experiment  was  not  a  financial 
success,  and  was  not  repeated,  and  the  tobacco  shed  was  put  to 
other  uses,  principally  for  storing  farm  implements  and  machin- 
ery, bricks,  etc.,  for  the  iron  works. 

During  a  recent  automobile  trip  through  the  southern  states, 
I  noticed  hundreds  of  log  houses  for  fire  curing  tobacco,  an  old 
method,  that  dates  back  to  the  early  settlement  of  America,  and 
the  practice  continues  where  the  tobacco  is  not  used  for  cigars, 
and  therefore  dififers  from  the  air  drying  of  Lancaster  County, 
Connecticut  and  elsewhere.  The  cultivation  and  harvesting  are 
however  about  the  same.  After  cutting,  the  tobacco  is  strung  on 
laths  and  placed  on  poles  in  the  tobacco  shed  in  much  the  same 
manner  as  that  described  by  Mr.  Scheetz.  In  North  Carolina 
the  tobacco  patches,  in  the  mountains,  through  which  we  traveled, 
consisted  mostly  of  small  clearings,  and  each  grower  has  his  own 
drying  house.-  They  are  all  built  of  logs,  size  about  16  or  18  feet 
square,  and  about  12  to  16  feet  high  to  the  square  of  the  roofs. 
The  roofs  are  made  tight,  most  of  them  being  covered  with 
shingles,  but  the  gable  ends  above  the  square  are  loosely  boarded 
with  openings  between  the  boards,  which  with  openings  underneath 
the  eaves,  provide  for  ventilation.   The  fire  curing  is  carried  on  by 

2  The  government  statistics  show  that  Kentucky  grows  one-third  of  all 
the  tobacco  in  the  United  States.but  owing  to  the  superior  quality  North 
Carolina  tobacco  stands  first  in  the  value  of  its  crop. 


NORTH  CAROLINA  TOBACCO  BARN  BUILT  OF  LOGS. 

For    artificial    diving    of    tobacco.      This    etching    shows    the    new    and    improved 

style  of  building  with  one  large  firebox  in  centre   of  gable  end 

and   entrance    door   on   the    side. 


§s 


WALL  M  w  ^ 


SHELTER  .   OPEN  FRONT  AND   SIDES,    BOARD  EOOf 


GROUND   FLOOR   PLAN   OF   OLD   STYLE   TOBACCO    BARN. 

Showing  two   stone   fireboxes  with   galvanized   iron   pipe   flue   projecting  through 
the  log  wall  above  the  entrance  door  in  front  gable  to  carry  off  the  smoke. 


TOCACCO  AXD   ITS   CULTURE   IX   RUCKS   COUNTY  623 

means  of  stone  flues,  built  on  the  floor  quite  near  the  log  walls, 
and  carried  around  the  two  sides  and  the  back  gable  end.  These 
stone  flues  project  through  the  log  walls  on  the  firing  end,  forming 
the  fireplaces,  as  shown  on  the  rough  sketch  which  accompanies 
this  paper.  The  only  door  is  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  front, 
and  therefore  between  the  fireplaces.  The  stone  flue  along  the 
rear  gable  end  has  an  opening  in  the  centre  where  a  galvanized 
iron  pipe,  about  10  or  12  inches  in  diameter  is  connected,  this  is 
carried  across  the  building  on  a  slight  incline,  just  steep  enough 
to  come  out  immediately  on  top  of  the  door,  where  a  verticle 
pipe  is  attached.  This  iron  flue  also  furnishes  additional  heating 
surface.  We  did  not  notice  any  tobacco  drying  buildings  con- 
structed in  any  other  way  than  I  have  described,  but,  as  will  be 
seen  by  the  etching  herewith,  there  is  now  an  improved  con- 
struction, with  one  larger  fireplace  in  the  center,  with  the  door 
on  the  side  of  the  building.  In  this  improved  construction  there 
is  a  stone  flue  along  the  front  gable  wall,  and  all  other  flues  are 
of  iron,  the  return  flue  coming  out  just  above  the  fireplace.  The 
time  required  for  fire  curing  is  from  four  to  five  days,  the  firing 
is  kept  up  both  night  and  day.  The  temperature  is  started  at 
about  90  degrees,  at  the  "yellowing  stage",  and  after  a  day  or 
two  is  gradually  raised  until  it  is  finally  dried  out  at  from  180 
to  190  degrees,  which  is  called  the  "kilning  out".  The  very 
earliest  practice  among  the  Indians  and  the  early  settlers  was  to 
use  both  heat  and  smoke.  This  produced  very  dark  tobacco,  as 
in  fact  the  present  mode  of  fire  curing  produces  dark  tobacco, 
such  as  is  used  for  chewing,  smoking,  snufif,  cigarettes,  &c.,  but 
not  for  cigars.  The  dwelling  houses  among  these  mountains  are 
mostly  built  of  logs. 

The  soil  in  Cuba  where  tobacco  is  grown,  is  quite  red  in  color, 
and  that  in  the  Province  of  Pinar  del  Rio.  on  the  extreme  western 
end  of  the  island,  where  the  very  best  quality  of  tobacco  is  grown, 
is  almost  of  a  vermillion  color.  It  is  a  fact  too,  that  much  of  the 
soil  in  Lancaster  County,  as  well  as  in  Virginia  and  North  Caro- 
lina, where  tobacco  is  grown,  is  of  a  noticeable  red  color,  but 
that  is  of  course  not  significant. 


Early  History  of  Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church. 

BY   WARREN    S.    ELY,   DOYLESTOWN,    PA. 
(Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church,  Hartsville,  June  7,  1924.) 

OUR  meeting  place  today  is  an  historic  one.  George  Wash- 
ington worshipped  in  this  church,  when  his  army  occupied 
the  hillside,  extending  from  the  ridge  above  the  grave- 
yard to  the  York  road,  for  two  weeks.  August  10  to  23,  1777 
(probably  the  longest  period  it  occupied  any  position  in  the 
county),  at  one  of  the  most  critical  periods  of  the  Revolution, 
wnth  headquarters  at  the  Moland  house  on  the  York  road,  where 
it  crosses  Little  Neshaminy  north  of  Hartsville.  The  historic  in- 
cidents of  this  camp,  where  Washington  awaited  news  of  the 
movements  of  Howe  and  his  army,  after  he  had  sailed  from  New 
York,  have  been  told  by  our  own  historian,  William  J.  Buck,  and 
others,  and  need  not  be  repeated  here. 

In  the  old  graveyard  sleep  many  heroes  of  the  Revolutionary 
struggle,  as  well  as  men  and  women,  prominent  in  the  more 
peaceable  annals  of  our  county.  It  is  located  in  the  center  of  the 
colony  of  the  first  Scotch-Irish  emigrants  to  Pennsylvania,  who 
had  so  much  to  do  with  the  later  history  of  our  county,  and  it 
should  be  the  Mecca  of  their  descendants. 

Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church  of  Warwick  is  one  of  the 
oldest  Presbyterian  churches  in  Pennsylvania.  It  was  fovmded 
under  its  present  name  at  this  location  in  1726,  but  had  its  origin 
two  decades  earlier  on  the  Neshaminy  creek  in  Bensalem,  twelve 
miles  southeast  of  here.  There  has  been  much  speculation  and 
conjecture  in  reference  to  the  connection  of  that  early  church  with 
the  founding  of  this  one. 

The  early  church,  really  a  Low  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  the 
legitimate  ancestor  of  the  Low  Dutch  Reformed  Church  of  North 
and  Southampton,  now  at  Churchville,  was  originally  composed 
entirely  of  descendants  of  Hollanders  on  Long  Island,  Staten  Is- 
land, New  York,  and  New  Jersey,  who  had  migrated  to  the  sec- 
tion of  Bucks  county  of  which  Holland  is  practically  the  centre, 
but  its  first  pastor,  Paulus  Van  Vlecq,  a  native  of  Holland,  being 
unable  to  secure  ordination  from  his  own  church,  appealed  to  the 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  NESIIAMINY  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  625 

Presbytery  at  Philadelphia,  who  licensed  him  to  preach  in  1710. 
For  this  reason  the  church  presented  the  curious  anomaly  of  a 
Dutch  Church  under  Presbyterian  authority.  After  Van  Vlecq 
left  here  in  1713,  the  church  was  without  a  pastor  for  six  years, 
depending  on  supplies  from  the  Dutch  Reformed  Churches  of 
Staten  Island,  and  an  occasional  preacher  sent  out  by  the  Pres- 
bytery. 

Among  the  latter  was  Malachi  Jones,  the  first  pastor  of  Ab- 
ington  Presb)1:erian  Church  founded  in  1714.  There  being  no 
other  Presbyterian  Church  in  this  district,  when  the  Scotch-Irish 
begun  to  settle  in  Bucks  county  in  1719.  they  naturally  united  with 
the  Neshaminy  Church,  and  much  confusion  was  caused  by  the 
want  of  unity  between  the  Dutch  and  Scotch  members  of  the 
church.  This  continued  until  each  had  established  a  separate 
church,  the  Dutch  at  Feasterville,  in  1736,  and  the  Scotch-Irish 
here  in  1726. 

Rev.  William  Tennent,  the  first  pastor  at  Warwick,  was  born 
in  Ireland  in  1673,  and  came  to  Pennsylvania  in  1717,  with  his 
wife  Catharine  Kennedy,  and  five  children,  four  sons  and  a 
daughter.  He  was  educated  for  the  Episcopal  Church,  presum- 
ably at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  was  for  some  years  chaplain 
for  an  Irish  nobleman  before  coming  to  America.  He  appeared 
before  the  Presbytery  at  Philadelphia.  September  16,  1718.  and 
renounced  his  allegiance  to  the  established  Church  of  Ireland,  and 
after  examination  by  the  Presbytery,  was  licensed  to  preach.  His 
movements  from  that  time  until  1726  have  long  been  largely  a 
matter  of  conjecture.  As  near  as  can  be  ascertained  from  the 
meagre  references  to  him  obtainable,  he  remained  but  a  short 
time  in  Pennsylvania,  and  then  removed  to  Westchester  county, 
New  York. 

I  made  an  earnest  effort  to  have  the  records  of  the  Presbytery 
of  Westchester  examined  for  references  to  Mr.  Tennent.  After 
considerable  correspondence  with  Rev.  H.  G.  Mendenhall.  D.D.. 
stated  clerk  of  the  Presbytery  of  New  York,  and  Rev.  Thomas 
Chalmer  Straus,  stated  clerk  of  the  Presbytery  of  Westchester. 
I  learned  that  the  records  of  the  latter  Presbytery  were  in  the 
safe  deposit  department  of  a  bank  at  Peekskill,  N.  Y.,  and  that 
Dr.  Straus  was  their  custodian.  I  arranged  to  go  with  him  to 
the  bank  and  examine  the  records  of  the  Presbytery.     But  alas 


626  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  NESHAMINY  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

for  human  expectations,  after  repeated  disappointments.  I  asked 
Dr.  Straus  to  make  an  examination  of  these  records  for  me.  He 
undertook  the  task,  but  was  unable  to  give  the  time  to  the  work 
that  a  careful  search  required.  Finding  that  the  records  of  the 
Presbytery  did  not  go  back  to  1721,  he  sent  me  extracts  from  the 
"History  of  Bedford  Church,"  by  Rev.  P.  H.  Hercy,  its  pastor 
1857-1878,  which  showed  that  Rev.  William  Tennent  was  settled 
as  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Bedford  May  3,  1720, 
but  in  1721  he  accepted  the  call  and  took  charge  of  the  Presby- 
terian churches  of  Bensalem  and  Smithfield  in  Pennsylvania.  Dr. 
Hercy  sites  as  his  authorities  "History  of  Stamford,"  Conn., 
"Sprague's  Annals  of  the  Presbyterian  Pulpit,"  and  "Webster's 
Presbyterian  Church  History."  Dr.  Mendenhall  and  Mr.  Straus 
had  previously  sent  me  references  to  "Cumming's  History  of  the 
Presbytery"  of  Westchester,  which  stated  that  Rev.  William 
Tennent  served  as  minister  at  Bedford  1720  to  1727.  and  both 
made  an  earnest  effort  to  help  me.  but  the  general  resvilt  is  rather 
discouraging. 

It  is,  however,  safe  to  say  that  Mr.  Tennent  became  pastor  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Bedford,  New  York,  May  3,  1720, 
and  that  he  accepted  the  call  to  Bucks  county  in  1721.  He  prob- 
ably remained  the  settled  pastor  of  the  Bensalem  Church  and 
ministered  to  the  congregations  at  Smithfield  in  Byberry,  until 
1726,  though  he  appears  of  record  as  preaching  at  Bedford  at 
intervals  during  the  years  1723  and  1724. 

The  records  of  the  conglomerated  Dutch  Reformed-Presbyter- 
ian Church  of  "Sammeny  and  Bensalem,"^  are  contained  in  a 
little  book  now  in  the  possession  of  the  trustees  of  the  Low  Dutch 
Reformed  Church  at  Churchville.  This  curious  little  book  was 
begun  by  Paulus  Van  Vlecq  in  1710,  and  contains  a  full  record 
of  his  ministerial  work  from  the  beginning  until  1712,  and  with  a 
single  entry  for  the  year  1713. 

From  the  latter  date  until  1719.  there  are  but  few  entries.  Then 
in  1719  and  1720  there  are  quite  a  number  of  entries  of  acces- 

1  The  old  church  erected  by  Van  Vlecq  and  his  parishioners  in  1705,  is 
still  standing,  at  leajt  the  original  walls,  bearing  the  date  stone  "1705,"  still 
enclose  the  church.  The  inflammable  portion  of  the  church  was  burned  sev- 
eral years  ago,  but  was  renewed  within  the  same  walls.  It  and  its  little 
overgrown  graveyard  are  located  on  the  Bristol  road  between  Xeshaminy 
Falls  and  the  Flushing  and  Newportville  road.  It  has  long  been  known  as 
the  "Presbyterian  Church  of  Bensalem,"  but  has  borne  many  names  since 
its  founding  in   1705. 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  NESIIAAIINY  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  627 

sions  by  profession  of  faith,  and  certificate,  including  quite  a  list 
of  persons  "lately  from  Eerlandt"  including  Pickins,  Wallace, 
Logans,  and  others  of  the  heads  of  families  of  the  first  invasions 
of  Ulster  Scots.  A  further  accession  including  the  Longs,  Jami- 
sons, Polks,  Hares,  and  others,  arrived  in  1724. 

These  are  the  people  who  it  is  stated  and  believed  extended 
the  call  to  their  compatriot  William  Tennent  in  1721,  but  an  ex- 
amination of  this  book  fails  to  show  any  mention  of  his  name  at 
any  period.  There  can  be  but  two  explanations  of  this  fact;  first 
that  he  returned  to  New  York  soon  after  being  called  as  pastor 
in  1721  and  did  not  return  until  1725  or,  second,  that  the  Dutch 
and  Irish  members  of  the  dual  church  kept  separate  records.  The 
latter  theory  is  probably  the  correct  one,  and  the  Dutch  record 
was  retained  by  the  Dutch  officers  and  passed  on  down  to  the 
present  Low  Dutch  Church ;  while  such  records  as  were  kept 
from  1721  to  1726,  under  the  pastorship  of  Rev.  William  Ten- 
nent, were  brought  to  Neshaminy  Church  of  Warwick,  and  are 
lost  with  the  records  of  this  church  down  to  about  1789. 

It  is  clearly  indicated  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  division  be- 
tween the  Dutch  and  Presbyterian  members  of  the  old  church, 
one  being  the  controlling  element  for  a  time,  and  then  the  other. 
Numerous  Presbyterian  members  left  the  church  in  1714,  and 
united  with  the  Abington  Church,  under  Malachi  Jones,  and  he 
became  the  joint  pastor  of  both  churches  in  1719,  and  con- 
tinued to  1721. 

An  examination  of  the  records  in  the  old  church  book  shows  a 
great  dearth  of  entries  from  1720  to  1724,  when  they  begin  to 
increase.  This  seems  to  indicate  that  Tennent  started  a  new  rec- 
ord book  in  1721,  and  when  he  absented  himself  temporarily  in 
1724,  the  Old  Dutch  book  was  reverted  to  again,  only  to  be  dis- 
carded on  his  return,  about  the  close  of  that  year,  and  begins 
again  after  his  departure  in  1726. 

Certain  it  is  that  Tennent  was  in  charge  of  the  old  church  in 
1725  and  with  the  increase  of  the  Scotch-Irish  colony  about  this 
locality,  began  to  minister  to  them  in  the  house  and  barn  of 
Jacobus  Craven-  at  Johnsville,  prior  to  being  called  as  their  regu- 
lar pastor  here  on  the  organization  of  the  church  in  1726. 

2  Jacobus  Craven  came  from  Staten  Island  to  Bucks  county  either  late  in 
1723  or  early  in  1724.  The  deed  from  "William  Stockdale  to  Jacobus  Craven 
for  a  170-acre  farm  at  Johnsville,  in  Warminster,  is  dated  Jan.  18,  1726,  but 
it  is  pretty  clearly  indicated  that  he  was  in  possession  for  some  time  prior 
to  that  date. 


628  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  NESHAMINY  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

The  tract  of  land  on  which  the  original  church  at  Neshaminy 
was  built  was  donated  by  William  Miller,  one  of  the  old  patriarchs 
of  the  Scotch-Irish  settlement,  and  the  church  was  erected  near 
the  site  of  the  present  chapel  in  the  graveyard  in  1727.  As  a  re- 
sult of  the  seism  of  1741,  the  congregation  was  divided  and  the 
"Old  Lights"  retained  the  old  church,  under  the  leadership  of 
Rev.  Francis  McHenry,  who  had  been  Mr.  Tennent's  assistant 
since  1739,  and  the  "New  Lights"  under  Tennent  and  his  succes- 
sor, Rev.  Charles  Beatty,  purchased  this  lot  and  built  the  pres- 
ent church  in  1743. 

The  old  Dutch  church  was  probably  used  intermittently  by 
McHenry 's  congregation  until  his  death  in  1757,  but  he  seems  to 
have  devoted  his  attention  more  particularly  to  Deep  Run  which 
had  been  under  his  ministerial  charge  for  several  years  as  assistant 
to  Tennent.  A  reconciliation  was  eiYected  between  the  two 
branches  in  1758,  and  the  old  church  was  abandoned.  It  was 
torn  down  in  1793,  and  the  stone  used  for  building  the  graveyard 
wall.  Its  original  date  stone,  marked  with  the  date  1727,  and  the 
initials  of  the  names  of  William  Miller  and  W^illiam  Gray  can 
still  be  seen  in  the  wall  near  the  gateway. 

The  present  church  w^as  enlarged  in  1775  and  improved  in 
1787,  and  again  in  1842,  after  the  second  division,  but  part  of  the 
original  church  still  exists. 

McHenry  was  ordained  pastor  of  Neshaminy  and  Deep  Run, 
Nov.  16,  1743,  and  died  Jan.  23,  1757.  He  lies  buried  near  the 
site  of  the  old  church. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Presbytery  of  New  Brunswick  held  May 
29,  1742,  "Mr.  William  Tennent  Sr.  gave  into  Presby.  a  paper 
setting  forth  his  inability  by  reason  of  advanced  age  to  discharge 
the  work  of  the  ministry  unto  the  congregation  at  Neshamineh 
over  which  he  has  for  divers  years  past  been  an  overseer,  desir- 
ing the  Presby.  to  grant  ye  congregation  at  Neshamineh  such  sup- 
plies as  they  can"  and  it  was  "resolved  that  Mr.  Robinson  supply 
Neshaminy  3  Sabbaths  and  Mr.  Treat  as  often  as  his  conveniency 
will  admit  until  our  next  meeting."  At  the  sessions  of  1743  J\Ir. 
Beatty  was  directed  to  supply  Neshaminy  one  half  of  his  time, 
and  the  other  half  at  Newtown.  A  call  was  later  extended  to 
him  as  regular  pastor  and  he  was  ordained  Dec.  14.  1743.  and 
served  until  1772,  though  often  on  long  furloughs  after  1760. 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  NESIIAMlNY  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  629 

The  later  pastors  were  Rev.  Nathaniel  Irwin,  Nov.  3,  1774,  to 
March  3,  1812.  Rev.  Robert  Belville,  Oct.  20,  1813,  to  Nov.  1. 
1838.  Rev.  James  Wilson,  D.D.,  Feb.  26,  1839,  to  June  30,  1847. 
Rev.  Douglass  K.  Turner,  April  18,  1848,  to  April  20,  1873. 

While  little  is  known  of  the  life  of  Rev.  William  Tennent  dur- 
ing his  sojourn  in  New  York  state,  between  the  years  1718  and 
1721,  it  is  certain  that  he  had  educated  for  the  ministry  his  two 
eldest  sons,  Gilbert  and  \\'illiam,  Jr..  and  laid  the  foundation 
of  a  fine  classical  education  for  his  two  other  sons,  John  and 
Charles,  who  were  fitted  for  the  ministry  at  the  Log  College 
founded  by  their  father  near  here  about  1726.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances we  have  wondered  whether  Mr.  Tennent  had  not  con- 
ducted a  classical  school  somewhere  in  New  York  or  Connecticut 
in  connection  with  his  preaching  in  that  vicinity. 

The  Log  College  was  doubtless  started  simultaneously  with  the 
founding  of  Neshaminy  Church  in  1726  or  1727,  but  possibly  was 
not  at  first  located,  on  the  little  triangular  lot,  on  the  York  road 
below  Hartsville  where  we  know  it  was  located  from  1735  to 
1745.  Tradition  says  it  was  started  on  a  tract  of  fifty  acres 
given  Mr.  Tennent  by  James  Logan.  This  could  not  apply  to 
the  York  Road  Log  Cabin,  as  James  Logan  never  owned  it,  and 
when  the  Carrel  farm  which  included  that  site  was  conveyed  to 
Mr.  Tennent  in  1735,  his  residence  is  given  in  the  deed  as  North- 
ampton township.  Right  here  let  me  digress  a  moment  and  call 
your  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  original  deeds  to  and  from  the 
Tennents,  both  unrecorded,  were  surreptitiously  carried  away 
from  Bucks  county  by  a  student  at  Princeton  University  several 
years  ago.  and  are  now  in  the  library  of  the  university. 

They  were  borrowed  from  Miss  A.  M.  Miles,  by  this  student, 
who  was  preparing  a  thesis  on  the  Log  College,  who  had  gone  to 
her  with  a  letter  of  introduction  from  myself,  and  never  returned. 
Miss  Miles  believing  for  a  long  time  that  they  had  been  left,  as 
promised,  in  the  custody  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical  So- 
ciety. These  deeds  being  unrecorded,  ought  to  have  been  pre- 
served in  our  county,  and  I  believe  we,  as  a  society,  ought  to  in- 
sist on  their  return  to  the  county,  at  least  for  record,  and  a  copy 
preserved  in  our  collections. 

Returning  to  the  consideration  of  the  original  location  of  the 
Log  College,  I  would  say  that  it  is  entirely  possible  that  it  was 


630  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  NESHAMINY  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

located  at  the  well  known  site  on  a  rental  ten  years  before  its  pur- 
chase by  William  Tennent,  as  it  occupied  a  very  small  triangular 
lot,  a  part  of  the  large  plantation  conveyed  to  Tennent  in  1795, 
lying  across  the  York  road  from  the  residence  and  main  part  of 
the  plantation,  too  small  to  be  considered  valuable  from  an  agri- 
cultural point  of  view. 

However,  it  is  also  possible,  that  the  school  was  originally  lo- 
cated elsewhere  for  the  first  few  years.  It  was  originally  referred 
to  as  at  "The  Forks  of  the  Neshaminy,"  and  the  York  road  site 
is  entirely  without  the  forks.  Of  course,  the  term  "Forks  of 
Neshaminy"  doubtless  referred  to  the  neighborhood  settled  by  the 
Scotch-Irish  of  which  this  point  was  the  geographical  center,  in 
the  same  way  that  the  "Forks  of  the  Delaware"  represent  the 
whole  district  north  of  the  Lehigh  and  thereabouts,  and  might 
include  the  York  road  site.  James  Logan  was  the  owner  of  land 
in  so  many  parts  of  the  county  that  assuming  the  truth  of  the 
tradition  it  would  be  hard  to  locate  the  tract  referred  to.  It  seems 
rather  immaterial  anyway  as  it  must  be  acceded  that  it  was  near 
the  site  of  the  church  where  its  founder  was  the  pastor. 


Recollections  of  Tennent  School. 

BV  DR.    HENRY   C.    MERCER,   DOVLESTOWN,    PA. 
(Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church  Meeting-,  June   7,   1924.) 

ON  a  lawn  grown  up  with  maple  and  Norway  spruce  trees, 
the  main  building  of  Tennent  School,  built  in  1850,  by 
the  Reverend  Mahlon  Long  and  his  brother,  Charles 
Long,  and  named  by  them  after  the  celebrated  Presbyterian 
Divine,  William  Tennent,  still  stands  a  few  yards  from  the  bank 
of  the  little  Neshaminy  creek,  in  Bucks  county,  about  a  mile 
north  of  Hartsville. 

The  School.—  In  1865-9  when,  I,  as  a  little  boy,  about  ten  to 
fourteen  years  old,  was  a  scholar  there,  the  large  plastered 
house,  very  white  and  clean  inside  and  out,  with  the  dining  room, 
parlor  and  dormitory  and  Mr.  Long's  study  in  the  main  struc- 
ture, had  as  now,  a  north  gable  for  the  kitchen  and  washhouse, 
and  an  east  gable,  for  the  school  room. 

Tennent  school  was  lit  by  gas,  made  in  a  gas  house,  in 
the  rear,  by  a  man  named  Forker,  who  not  only  kept  the  pipes 
full  of  gas,  but  cut  the  boys'  hair,  near  the  gasometer  when  neces- 
sary. Behind  the  kitchen  garden,  there  was  a  horizontal  bar, 
and  rope  turnstile,  for  open  air  gymnasts,  and  to  the  west,  a  barn 
and  tenant  house,  under  large  Plane  trees,  lived  in  by  a  rather 
decrepit  man,  named  Johnnie  MacAliese,  who  helped  Forker  at 
the  gas  house,  and  about  the  grounds.  Beyond  the  tenant  house, 
there  was  a  deep  little  gully,  overgrown  with  fox  grapes,  and  a 
little  farther,  a  walled  graveyard,  a  remote  and  very  seckided 
place,  where  no  one  ever  came  to  stop  the  boys  from  playing 
"Kick  the  Wicket".  Across  the  road  from  this,  close  to  the 
stream,  and  under  a  grove  of  white  oaks,  stood  the  then  freshly 
modernized,  carpenter-Gothic,  Neshaminy  church.  Though  his- 
toric only  in  its  record,  the  gigantic  trees  around  it.  the  utter 
seclusion,  the  stream,  bridge,  and  rarely  traveled  road,  would  have 
impressed  some  minds  with  the  place  as  another  "Stoke  Pogis" 
that  waited  only  for  its  poet. 

The  boys  thought  nothing  of  Hartsville.  a  mile  away,  with  its 
sluggish  inhabitants.     The  school  lawn  did  for  base-ball.    Bounds 


632  RECOLLECTIONS    OF    TEXXEXT    SCHOOL 

did  not  exist.  The  the  Neshaminy  with  its  noisy  mill-dam  below, 
swimming  holes,  fishing  pools,  skating  runs,  shellbark  windfalls, 
and  reaches  of  up  stream  woodland,  was  everything.  Seen  from 
the  high  hill,  which  still  keeps  off  the  north  wind,  this  charming 
little  valley,  has  yet  the  peaceful  look  of  those  days.  You  feel 
it  until  you  go  down  among  the  bungalows,  and  see  the  placards, 
and  red  paint  in  Hartsville.  and  smell  the  gasoline  on  the  big 
new  road. 

This  hill,  topped  with  its  high  sky-rimmed  tableland,  an  out 
of  the  way  region,  crossed  by  roads  that  no  one  traveled,  then 
shut  off  home  and  Doylestown,  more  completely  than  the  Atlantic 
ocean  ever  did  since,  and  when  my  father  first  drove  me  to 
school  over  it,  with  my  little  trunk,  in  a  covered  market  wagon, 
wath  a  horse  named  Larry,  a  never-to-be-forgotten  homesickness, 
amounting  almost  to  despair,  distorted  my  point  of  view,  and 
darkened  my  youthful  days,  until  at  last,  when  more  than  one 
session  had  come  and  gone,  Tennent  school  conquered  me. 

It  did  so  because,  to  this  day,  I  have  only  admiration  for  it 
and  its  Master — no  grievances.  If  I  had  these,  I  should  either 
have  to  suppress  them,  for  fear  of  offending  somebody,  or  write 
a  eulogy,  or  one  of  the  so-called  "Appreciations",  which  I  will 
not  do. 

THE  REVEREXD  MAHLOX  LONG. 

AMien  I  was  at  Tennent  school,  Mr.  Charles  Long  having  died, 
Mr.  Mahlon  was  there  alone.  An  anonymous  obituary  notice  in 
the  Doylestown  Democrat  of  February  3,  1892,  which  should  be 
correct,  says  that  Mr.  Long  was  the  son  of  Hugh  and  Mary  Long ; 
was  born  in  Warminster  township,  Bucks  county.  Pa.,  March  6, 
1809 ;  studied  at  the  classical  school  of  his  older  brother  Samuel, 
in  Warwick,  Bucks  county;  w^as  graduated  from  Princeton  1893; 
studied  Theology  at  Yale  College  Theological  Seminary  for  three 
years ;  was  licensed  to  preach  by  the  Fourth  Presbyterian  Pres- 
bytery in  1845,  and  was  a  very^  successful  principal  of  the  Acad- 
emy at  Harrisburg.  He  and  his  brother  Charles  established 
Tennent  School,  in  buildings  built  for  that  purpose  in  1850.  The 
Rev.  Mahlon  Long  taught  it  alone  for  a  few  years  after  his 
brother's  death,  and  gave  it  up  in  1869.  He  was  the  son  of  Hugh 
and  Mary  Long,  and  was  born  in  W^arminster  township,  Bucks 


KKCOLLECTIOXS    OF    TEXXEXT    SCHOOL 


633 


county.  March  6,  1809.  lie  died  at  his  home  4108  Spruce  street, 
Philadelphia,  Monday  evening,  Feb.  1.  1892,  at  the  age  of  83. 
In  a  school  catalogue  of  1853,  the  president  of  Yale  College, 
several  Princeton  professors,  and  a  number  of  ministers,  warm- 
ly recommended  the 
school  and  its  masters. 
Though  I  always 
looked  hard  at  celebrities 
when  I  had  the  chance, 
Mr.  Long  still  stands 
alone,  as  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  looking 
men  I  ever  saw  in  my 
life.  He  was  very  tall, 
thin,  and  reasonably 
straight,  dressed  with 
scrupulous  neatness,  al- 
ways in  black  broadcloth, 
with  a  high  black  stock, 
and  at  all  times,  a  high 
silk  hat.  His  healthy 
parchment  skin  was  al- 
ways clean  shaven ;  his 
face  long  and  narrow, 
with  somewhat  retreat- 
ing chin,  and  features, 
very  aquiline,  but  not  at 
all  Jewish. 

The  boys  said  that  he 
was  very  fond  of  pound 
cake,  and  I  believe  it,  for  he  made  no  secret  of  the  large  iced 
discs,  that  I  often  saw  on  his  study  table.  One  of  my  uncles,  a 
previous  scholar,  said  that  he  had  a  habit  of  shuffling  his  arms  to 
bring  down  his  shirt  cuffs,  but  I  never  noticed  that. 

\\'hether  because  of  his  reverence  for  learning,  his  belief  in 
things  unseen,  sermons,  studies,  or  what  not,  he  had  a  peculiar 
resonant  appealing  soft  pitched  voice,  belonging  to  a  distinct,  very 
rarely  heard,  almost  non- American  type,  although  he  was  entire- 
ly unconscious  of  it.  and  never  spoke  to  hear  his  own  words. 


634  RECOLLECTIONS    OF    TEX  NEXT    SCHOOL 

Management. — My  association  with  the  boys,  and  the  en- 
vironment, was  a  good  deal  at  Tennent  School,  but  most  of  its 
influence  came  from  Mr.  Long  himself,  and  not  frorti  the  other 
teachers,  who  though  much  with  us,  have  left  but  little  impression 
upon  my  mind.  Mr.  Long  kept  us  in  order  without  clashes  of 
authority,  though  1  never  wondered  till  later,  how  he  did  it.  or 
why  he  had  a  stronger  moral  influence  over  boys,  than  other 
teachers  encountered  afterwards.  For  1  have  seen  whole  class- 
rooms in  disorder,  masters  utterly  unable  to  control  the  slamming 
of  desks,  stones  thrown  through  the  glass  of  a  window  at  a  kindly 
gentleman  seated  at  his  desk  in  Doylestown,  and  again  through 
an  open  window  at  Professor  William  Everett,  lecturing  at  Har- 
vard, when  the  latter  "brought  down  the  house"  by  catching  the 
stone  in  the  air  and  shouting  in  his  high  pitched  voice,  "Out  on 
the  fly".  But  no  such  things  at  Tennent.  Mr.  Long  seemed  to 
believe  in  public  rather  than  private  admonition,  in  continually 
telling  us  that  every  boy  knew  how"  to  "walk  straight",  as  he 
called  it,  and  almost  never  interfered  with  us  out  of  school.^ 
He  denounced  "Printed  Rules",  or  the  boy  who  dared  to  say 
that  he  didn't  know  that  such  and  such  a  thing  was  "against  the  . 
rules".  But  this  hardly  explains  why  there  were  no  bad  breaches 
of  discipline,  no  night  raids,  blanketed  windows,  bed  room  feasts, 
or  cider  sprees.  At  Mohegan  Lake  School,  where  I  was  a  later 
scholar,  there  was  a  cage  or  strong  box  prison  for  solitary  con- 
finement, but  not  at  Tennent.  No  one  was  expelled  in  my  time. 
Mr.  Long  set  up  for  our  emulation  the  lives  of  eminent  men, 
college  professors,  etc.  But  unlike  my  old  Scotch  tutor,  Thomas 
Hughes,  told  us  no  historic  stories  to  excite  wonder  or  reverence 
for  the  past  or  its  glories,  such  as  how  Cortez  betrayed  the  Inca 
of  Peru,  or  how  the  Roman  General  Sertorius  swam  the  Rhone 
with  his  armour  on.  He  had  no  favorites,  made  no  personal  ap- 
peal to  boys,  no  friendships,  no  term  of  equality,  with  arm  in 
arm  walks,  or  Sunday  school  handkerchief  tricks.  He  was 
liberal,  never  unjust,  and  won,  if  not  the  affection  of  all  the 
boys,  certainly  that  of  myself,  with  the  respect  of  everybody, 
mingled  with  some  little,  but  to  my  mind,  not  too  much  fear. 

But  outdoor  exercise  was  his  gospel,  always  advocated,   and 

1  According  to  one  of  the  most  amusing  of  Judge  Yerkes"  anecodotes,  he  at 
least  once  misplaced  his  confidence  in  boy  honour.  But  that  was  before  my 
time.     I  never  saw  him  encounter  any  such  discouraging  set  back. 


RECOLLECTIONS    OF    TENNENT    SCHOOL  635 

often  compelled.  He  would  drive  a  sluggish  boy  out  of  the 
school-room,  or  even  off  the  place  in  play  hours.  His  talks  were 
easy.  His  half-holidays  frequent.  One  day  he  gave  us  one  to 
see  an  ice-crash  on  Neshaminy,  when  I  well  remember  his  tall 
figure  in  the  tempestuous  twilight,  the  dramatic  scene,  the  tre- 
mendous noise,  water  invading  the  churchyard,  and  muskrats 
floating  down  the  roaring  stream  on  ice  cakes.  Almost  fanatical, 
yet  loveable,  was  his  inspiring  theory,  for  which  I  have  never 
ceased  to  thank  him,  that  the  whole  country  side  was  our  play 
ground,  and  that  there  were  no  bounds  at  Tennent  School.  Any 
newcomer,  who  asked  questions  on  this  dangerous  subject,  "got 
more  than  he  bargained  for". 

Punishment. — Here,  as  at  Mohegan  Lake  School,  near  Peeks- 
kill,  New  York,  the  idea  of  exercise  was  carried  into  punish- 
ment. No  one  was  "kept  in"  to  learn  columns  of  dictionary,  or 
play  copyist,  in  the  close  school-room.  We  "walked  the  circle". 
But  while  at  Mohegan,  "the  circle",  was  a  miserable  "circus 
ring",  about  two  hundred  yards  in  diameter, — an  outdoor  tread- 
mill, at  Tennent,  it  followed  a  reach  of  roads  up  over  the  north 
hill,  and  down  again,  about  three  miles  long,  which,  it  was  said, 
Mr.  Long  could  command  with  a  telescope  from  the  school 
buildings.  I  have  been  around  this  circle  many  a  time,  to  my 
advantage,  but  never  dared  to  cut  a  corner !  Our  master  had  a 
refined,  conservative  respect,  for  which  I  warmly  thank  him  to 
this  day,  for  the  full  curriculum,  including  the  classics,  and 
nothing  but  oft  expressed  public  contempt  for  boys,  who  by 
home  pressure,  got  out  of  studying  latin  for  a  "business  course". 
He  called  them  "contemptible  dribblers",  who  should  "wear  petti- 
coats", and  be  supplied  with  "sugar  teats",  a  name  for  candy, 
which  I  never  heard  before  or  since. 

Household  Details. — I  found  no  fault  with  the  table,  re- 
marked no  musty  butter,  doughy  bread,  or  over  doses  of  molasses. 
The  roast  beef  was  always  very  good.  Facts  proved  what  I 
heard  Mr.  Long  tell  some  of  the  visiting  mothers,  that  he  be- 
lieved in  "good  plain  food  well  cooked  and  plenty  of  it". 

In  those  days  strict  Presbyterians  or  even  Quakers,  were  not 
alone  in  giving  "art  the  cold  shoulder".  "Jig  saw"  and  Pullman 
car"  house  decorations  were  coming  in,  but  horse  hair  veneered 
furniture,   and   plain    white    walls,   held   their    own   at    Tennent. 


636  RECOLLECTIONS    OF    TEN  NEXT    SCHOOL 

There  may  have  been  an  engraved  portrait  or  two  in  Mr.  Long's 
study,  but  I  doubt  if  there  was  a  picture  anywhere  else  in  the 
school. 

Books  and  Reading. — I  think  I  remember  a  private  copy  of 
Captain  Mayne  Reid's  "Osceola  the  Seminole",  and  possibly  his 
"Cliff  Climbers",  and  some  odd  boy-owned  volumes  of  the  brag- 
ging little  "Young  America  Abroad"  books,  and  I  know  that  Mr. 
Long  was  very  fond  of  his  tine  edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Brit- 
tanica,  and  must  have  had  other  books  behind  the  glass  cases  in 
his  study,  but  in  our  little  cupboard  library  in  the  school-room, 
there  was  no  fiction  except  "Sanford  and  Merton",  and  Mrs. 
Sherwood's  works,  among  which  stories,  I  remember  one  called 
"The  Noble  Altamont",  and  another,  as  the  one  most  read  by  the 
boys,  "The  Monk  of  Cimes",  with  the  word  "Cimes"  pronounced 
in  two  syllables,  by  the  boys,  to  rhyme  with  the  home  name  of 
the  Siamese  twins.  Nevertheless,  when  one  of  my  uncles  sent 
me  continuous  numbers  of  a  thrilling  serial  story  in  the  old 
romance  mill  called  the  New  York  Ledger,  then  considered  a 
rival  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  Mr.  Long  did  not  stop  my  mail, 
which  he  would  have  done,  if  he  had  been  a  bigot. 

School  Memories. — We  had  no  night  entertainments,  no 
shows,  etc.,  and  I  remember  feeling  sorry  that  the  offer  of  a  young 
traveling  tutor,  who  wished  to  read  aloud  the  "Prisoner  of  Chil- 
lon",  was  turned  down.  I  remember  one  of  the  teachers,  a  small 
dark  man,  who  was  fond  of  history,  and  I  think  sometimes  read  to 
us  passages  from  "The  Lady  of  the  Lake".  Otherwise,  as  before 
remarked,  the  under  instructors  made  little  impression  upon  me, 
except  Miss  Rebecca  Ely,  Mr.  Long's  step-daughter,  with  whom 
I  had  a  never  to  be  forgotten,  though  long  forgiven,  mental 
clash.  Her  efforts  to  teach  me  music  had  got  as  far  as  my 
playing  "The  Lorelei"  pretty  well,  on  the  piano,  when  one  day, 
some  sort  of  mental  paralysis  baffled  my  efforts  to  count  time. 
Her  exasperation  at  my  apparent  stupidity,  ended  in  a  brain 
panic,  such  as  in  algebra,  in  later  years,  nearly  lost  me  my 
degree  at  Harvard  College,  or  as  still  makes  chemical  formulae 
for  me  as  meaningless  as  the  buzz  of  a  discordant  telephone.  I 
exonerate  entirely  her  father,  who  at  her  request  flourished  a 
long  stick  over  me  and  the  piano,  but  it  made  matters  worse, 
ending  in  my  final  abandonment  of  music  at  the  request  of  my 


RECOLLECTION'S    OF    TENNEXT    SCHOOL  637 

parents.  In  consequence,  though  very  fond  of  folk-music,  I 
have  never  got  beyond  whistHng,  and  a  Httle  fiddhng  by  ear,  and 
miss  the  convenient  famiHarity  with  the  piano,  of  my  musical 
friends. 

Tremendously  impressive  were  the  Sunday  afternoon  lectures, 
omitted  at  Mohegan  School,  given  by  Mr.  Long,  in  which  he 
said  that  he  did  not  "mince  matters",  on  the  vices  of  boys,  and 
the  dangers  of  city  life,  again  and  again  illustrated  by  the  case 
of  a  boy  wrecked  by  dissipation  in  Philadelphia,  who.  like  the 
terrifying  subject  of  Ibsen's  Ghosts,  came  home  to  Hartsville 
to  die  and  was  buried  in  the  graveyard  nearby.  Otherwise  on 
Sundays  after  church  we  learned  by  heart  passages  from  the 
Bible,  none  of  which  as  assigned  to  me.  seemed  well  chosen,  or 
ever  correctly  stuck  in  my  memory,  as  for  instance  Psalms 
XXIV,  7-10,  beginning,  "Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates ;  and 
be  ye  lifted  up  ye  everlasting  doors",  where  the  similarity  of 
metrical  phrase  in  verses  7  and  10.  baffied  my  boyish  memory, 
and  brought  reprimand,  if  not  punishment.  But  if  Mr.  Long 
did  not  impress  me  with  this  passage,  he  did  most  deeply  with 
another.  Mark  XIII-35,  continually  read  to  the  slippered  boys 
at  bed-time-prayers  in  the  dining  room.  You  could  heard  a  pin 
drop,  when  by  these,  perhaps  the  most  omnous  words  in  the 
whole  Bible.  The  coming  of  the  master  is  associated  with 
the  passing  hours  of  evening,  midnight,  the  cock  crowing,  and 
dawn.  The  verse  ends  with  "what  I  say  unto  you.  I  say 
unto  all.  watch",  and  if  anything  could  have  added  to  the  tre- 
mendous effort  of  the  final  sentence,  and  sent  us  trembling  up- 
stairs, it  w'as  the  loud  reverberating  clap  of  the  big  Bible  at  the 
last  word,  "watch". 

The  Boys  at  Tennent. — Hazing  was  not  practiced,  nor  even 
thought  of  at  Tennent  when  I  was  there,  among  about  thirty 
boys,  mostly  from  Philadelphia,  with  some  from  New  Jersey, 
Delaware,  and  Maryland,  and  a  few  from  the  neighborhood,  but 
none  from  Doylestown.  There  was  little  mischief  or  deviltry, 
and  I  remember  no  fights,  but  what  school  is  without  bullies? 
One  sluggish  fellow  would  sit  in  the  lobby  making  jack  straws 
with  a  six-bladed  knife,  open  at  all  angles  beside  him,  and  threw 
it  at  any  one  who  dared  come  in  and  leave  the  door  open.  Yet 
no  one  was  hurt.     I  took  him  to  be  a  bullv  because  he  often 


638  RECOLLECTIONS    OF    TEXXEXT    SCHOOL 

would  say  in  a  crowd  of  boys,  "Do  you  see  that  little  fellow? 
He  is  all  alone.  He's  got  no  friends.  Why  don't  you  knock  him 
down,  and  lick  him  ?"  But  as  nothing  ever  happened,  J  thought 
since,  that  he  was  a  satyrist,  and  that  I  had  misjudged  him. 

Big  J.  L.  took  delight  in  what  he  called  "drapping"  me.  In 
other  words,  I  was  to  stand  up  at  his  imperial  command,  and  be 
knocked  down,  by  a  J.  L.  Sullivan  blow,  from  him  on  the  chest. 
HI  ran,  he  chased  me  until  he  caught  me,  and  if  I  wouldn't  be 
"drapped",  he  "licked"  me.  But  when  all  is  considered,  I  de- 
served his  punishment,  for  being  devilish  enough  to  get  the 
nickname  "smirker"  fixed  upon  a  school  mate  relative  who  was 
afifected  with  a  nervous  uncontrolable  twitching  of  the  mouth. 
Still  I  felt  sorry  for  a  poor  little  English  scholar,  whose  mother 
was  employed  as  a  servant  at  the  school,  when  boys,  not  repri- 
manded by  Mr.  Long,  who  twanged  their  American  r's  "made 
fun  of  him,  for  dropping  his  h's.- 

D.  from  Wilmington,  Delaware,  was  one  of  the  finest  swim- 
mers I  ever  saw,  and  I  tried  in  vain  to  copy  a  wonderful  trick 
he  had  of  scissoring  the  water  with  his  legs,  that  sent  him  ahead 
like  a  duck.  He  was  also  a  young  pugilist,  whom  no  one  dared  to 
bully,  and  was  said  to  have  learned  both  arts  from  the  sailors  on 
the  river  wharves.  I  remember  that  while  swimming  ahead  of 
everybody,  with  neck  and  shoulders  out  of  water,  he  would  shake 
his  curly  head  like  a  Spaniel.  My  only  accomplishment,  learned 
on  the  long  reaches  of  the  frozen  Neshaminy,  was  fast  skating, 
at  which,  when  I  went  later  to  Mohegan  School,  and  had  a  lake 
to  race  on,  I  thought  I  could  hold  my  own  with  any  one.  I  re- 
member Robert  Pleasanton,  as  pleasant  as  his  name,  the  jolly 

-  At  that  time,  the  general,  more  or  less  instructed  English  voice  in 
Doylestown,  in  and  about  Philadelphia,  Harrisburg,  etc.,  as  I  learned 
to  speak  it,  was  very  strident  and  rasping,  and  keyed  to  a  more  pierc- 
ing, sharper  edged  r  than  now.  No  doubt  in  this  matter,  as  Arnold 
Bennett  says,  "when  I  was  born  I  was  done  for".  But  being  guilty 
and  not  conscious  of  the  point.  I  would  not  have  noticed  it,  if  my 
southern  cousins  had  not  continually  laughed  at  me  for  it,  and  if  at 
Mohegan  Lake  School,  I  had  not  been  ordered  by  the  principal  to 
stop  whining. 

Since  then,  the  Pennsylvania-Ohio  Valley  voice,  probably  from  for- 
eign admixture,  rapid  transit,  etc,  has  grown  softer.  But  we  were  not 
instructed  in  those  days  to  tamper  with  the  old  established  phrase  "not 
at  all",  by  making  the  last  word  rhyme  with  the  shoemaker's  instru- 
ment, or  to  croak  two  syllables  into  the  words  known,  shown,  hewn, 
and  grown,  etc. 


RECOLLECTIONS    OF    TKXXEXT    SCHOOL  639 

adventurous  Ralp  Gurley,  and  the  envied  maker  of  jack  straws, 
George  Earle.  With  the  respectful  admiration  of  one  of  the  ht- 
tlest  for  one  of  the  biggest  boys,  I  placed  the  alert  handsome 
athletic  intelligent  master  of  base-ball,  T.  Corwin  Cheston,  with 
his  ruddy  English  face,  and  close  curled  auburn  hair,  at  the  top 
of  everything  in  the  school,  and  I  have  not  forgotten  his  kindly 
telling  me  that  if  I  wanted  an  interesting  story,  I  should  read 
the  article  "Hercules",  in  Anthon's  Classical  Dictionary. 

I  remember  the  gentle  refined  Jewish  Marcus  Simon,  who  gave 
me  a  tin  Japanned  box,  which  I  still  have.  Also  George  Hotten- 
stein,  because  he  painted  in  water  colors,  so  as  to  thrill  me  with 
the  picture  of  a  hay  field,  with  wagons,  men,  and  hay  stacks, 
under  a  very  blue  sky. 

My  uncle,  Arthur  Chapman,  though  he  never  showed  any  great 
at¥ection  for  the  school  to  me,  was  nevertheless  fond  of  repeating 
a  doggeral  rhyme  composed  by  some  boy  in  his  time. 

"Remember  friends,  remember,  when  our  college  days  are  gone, 
The  days  we  spent  at  Tennent,  the  school  of  Mahlon  Long." 

But  when  I  ventured  to  test  this  in  later  years,  on  one  of  my 
schoolmates,  R.  H.  P.,  I  received  a  very  severe  snub.  It  was  in 
1882.  I  was  reading  law  with  his  cousin  in  Philadelphia,  at  the 
office  of  Messrs.  Freedley  and  Hollingsworth,  and  wdien  he  came 
into  the  room  to  see  his  relative,  and  on  my  enthusiastic  attempt 
to  recall  my  self,  and  old  times  at  Tennent  School,  remarked 
that  what  I  referred  to  had  happened  so  long  ago,  that  he  had 
forgotten  all  about  it,  I  felt  that  a  hogshead,  rather  than  a  bucket 
of  cold  water,  had  been  thrown  over  me. 

Oratory. — I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  original  compositions 
and  orations  from  "Sargeant's  Standard  Speaker",  the  first  high- 
ly helpful  to  boyish  ambitions,  the  second  inspiring,  but  sometimes 
ridiculous.  We  missed  "Eugene  Aram",  "The  Battle  of  Blen- 
heim", "The  Mistletoe  Bough",  Charles  Kingley's  poems,  and 
Byron,  and  it  was  too  soon  for  "Barbara  Freitchie".  But  we 
had  "Old  Ironsides",  "The  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore",  Patrick 
Henry's  "Give  me  Liberty  or  Give  me  Death",  "Burr  and  Blen- 
nerhasset",  "Marco  Bozarris",  "On  Linden  when  the  Sun  was 
law",  and  "I  am  amazed  my  Lor  at  the  attack  the  Noble  Duke 
has  made  upon  me",  never  very  well  memorized.  "Ye  crags  and 
peaks,  I'm  with  you  once  again". — was  ruined  several  times  by 


640  RECOLLECTIOXS    OF    Ti:XXi:.\T    SCHOOL 

a  thick  lipped  boy,  who  was  put  oil  the  stage  for  persistently 
saying,  "onct"  for  once. 

Memories. — Mr.  Riegel  may  be  with  us  at  this  meeting.  If  he 
is,  does  he  remember  the  boots  his  father  made  for  the  boys  at 
Tennent  School,  when  we  used  to  go  up  to  his  white  house  on 
the  north  hill,  to  try  them  on?  Were  any  of  them,  which  I 
heard  were  made  of  a  kind  of  leather  called  "French  Kip",  ever 
too  tight?  If  so,  whose  fault  was  it?  I  prefer  to  blame  it  on 
the  boys,  my  self  included,  who  wanted  small  aristocratic  looking 
feet,  whether  nature  had  thus  favored  them  or  not.  Some  of 
us  suffered  in  consequence. 

Another  memory  of  Tennent  School  is  Sunday  Church,  walked 
to  in  procession,  and  terrible  sermons,  generally  from  visiting 
ministers,  heard  never  at  Xeshaminy,  but  more  often  at  Harts- 
ville,  and  once  culminating  at  the  little  schoolhouse  chapel  at 
Newville.  John  Knox  never  could  have  out  done  this  last.  It 
was  about  the  unpardonable  sin,  and  the  "grieving"  of  the  spirit. 
— The  interview  after  church. — The  boys'  last  chance,  as  he  went 
down  those  creaking  stairs,  that  particular  afternoon.  If  Mr.  W. 
preached  it  to  do  the  boys  good,  he  failed.  He  only  scared 
them,  and  hurt  his  cause,  by  making  it  harder  for  us  in  later 
years  to  meet  the  gigantic  blunder  of  the  atheist,  who  blames 
Christianity  for  what  goes  on  in  churches. 

These  boyish  processions  with  Air.  Long  at  their  head,  did  not 
always  lead  to  church.  Twice  they  took  us  to  what  then  ap- 
peared a  primeval  boys'  paradise,  beyond  the  dreams  of  Captain 
Mayne  Reid.  A  place  still  called  "Dark  Hollow".  Dark  with 
hemlock  trees,  with  a  mill-dam.  water-fall,  and  swimming-pool 
of  unfathomed  depth.  Though  now  robbed  by  time  of  its  mill- 
race  and  dam,  and  nearly  ruined  by  the  modern  man,  with  his 
gasoline  saw,  I  have  never  lost  trace  of  this  inspiring  fastness. 
But  another  place  that  I  met  with  on  one  of  Mr.  Long's  never-to- 
be-forgotten  picnics,  was  less  definite,  a  sumptuous  farm  house, 
the  finest  I  ever  saw,  proudly  stocked  with  fowls  and  animals, 
overloaded  with  the  goods  of  the  earth,  a  place  to  rival  Horace's 
Sabine  Farm,  or  Ruben's  Summer  Elysium,  at  Laaken,  a  glor- 
ious place,  on  the  south  sloping  bank  of  a  stream.  The  buildings 
full  of  busy  people,  everything  shining,  the  barns  magnificent. 
But. — where  was  it?    Who  lived  or  lives  there?    To  this  dav,  it 


SCHOOL   BOY    MEMORIES  641 

remains  a  mysterious  elusive  vision,  which  I  have  often  tried, 
but  always  failed,  to  trace. 

In  looking  them  over,  I  fear  that  these  recollections  of  a  boy 
thirteen  years  old,  may  seem  trifling  and  incoherent.  They  make 
no  attempt  to  throw  any  new  light  on  the  history  of  Tennent 
School,  to  establish  the  value  of  refined  private  instruction  on 
the  community,  or  name  noted  scholars.  But  if  they  do  not  ex- 
press my  reverence  and  veneration  for  Mr.  Long  and  his  labours 
for  civilization  their  purpose  fails. 


School  Boy  Memories. 

BY  HON.   HARMAN   YERKES,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church,  Hartsville,  June  7,  1924.) 

IN  obedience  to  an  outstanding  promise  of  some  years  to  make 
a  few  remarks  at  the  proposed  meeting  of  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society  on  this  occasion,  I  realize  the  primary  ob- 
ject of  this  meeting,  is  to  revive  recollections  of  Tennent  School, 
the  memories  of  my  associations  with  which  are  always  near  to  my 
heart.  I  may,  therefore,  be  permitted,  in  advance  of  referring 
directly  to  my  association  with  this  school,  to  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that,  prior  to  its  opening,  the  community  in  which  it  was 
established  had  been  an  educational  centre,  for  generations 
theretofore. 

The  founding  of  the  old  Log  College,  the  mother  of  Princeton, 
has  been  so  thoroughly  commented  upon  before  this  society  and 
in  general  history  that  I  will  only  recall  that  the  actual  spot  of 
its  origin  on  the  Neshaminy  hills  of  Bristol  road,  by  Rev.  Wil- 
liam Tennent,  was  within  sight  of  the  home  of  the  Tennent 
school,  while  its  permanent  and  more  noted  abode  in  the  old  Log 
College,  of  which  I  am  the  proud  possessor  of  a  print,  forwarded 
me  from  California,  stood  within  a  mile  of  this  spot. 

But  Log  College,  though  the  forerunner,  was  not  the  only 
educational  institution  from  which  the  founders  of  Tennent 
school  drew  their  inspiration.  Long  before  the  enactment  by  the 
legislature  of  Pennsvlvania  of  the  act  of  1854,  to  creat  a  common 


642  SCHOOL  BOY   MEMORIES 

school  system  in  Pennsylvania,  the  old-time  residents  of  this 
community  had  devoted  themselves  to  unusual  efforts  in  the  ad- 
vancement of  education.  Within  my  memory,  there  were  the 
Loller  academy  at  Hatboro,  founded  by  the  munificence  of  Rob- 
ert Loller,  and  other  educational  institutions  such  as  the  Hart 
school  on  the  road  from  Johnsville  to  Richboro,  the  eight-square 
schoolhouse  upon  the  county  line  road  south  of  Johnsville,  in  my 
knowledge  about  the  only  brick  school  house  in  this  county,  al- 
though, at  a  recent  meeting  in  my  town,  eminent  school  author- 
ities vigorously  advocated  the  abandonment  of  the  "Old  Red 
School  Houses."  There  was  the  school  at  Darrah's  woods  sug- 
gested and  patronized  by  Robert  Darrah  and  his  neighbors ;  the 
school  on  the  York  Road  at  the  Lane's,  end  of  my  uncle,  John  C. 
Bean's  residence  in  the  founding  of  which  he  was  an  active  party 
and  of  which  my  cousin,  Sarah  Yerkes,  afterwards  the  wife  of 
Rev.  Andrew  Jackson  Hay,  was  a  teacher,  succeeded  by  Dr. 
Nicholls,  who  later  taught  in  the  Middle  Street  Road  school- 
house,  and  which,  my  diary  shows,  I  assisted  in  moving  from  its 
roadside  location  on  the  13th  day  of  April,  1862,  it  having  been 
occupied  as  a  township  schoolhouse  until  the  completion  of  the 
Street  Road  schoolhouse  and  afterwards  by  tenants  on  the  farm. 
Not  to  be  forgotten  are  the  schools  on  Kerr's  hill  established  by 
Samuel  Long,  the  brother  of  the  founders  of  Tennent  school  and 
also  that  of  Rev.  James  P.  Wilson  along  the  York  Road,  upon 
the  farm  now  of  Robert  H.  Engart.  Dr.  Wilson,  upon  his 
resignation  as  pastor  of  the  Neshaminy  church,  was  assigned  the 
presidency  of  the  Delaware  College  at  Newark,  Delaware.  The 
last  survivor  of  Dr.  Wilson's  school,  G.  Morris  Dorrance,  is  en- 
rolled amongst  the  first  of  the  pupils  at  Tennent  school,  indicat- 
ing that  Rev.  Wilson  had  then  closed  his  school.  The  teachers 
in  all  of  these  designated  private  schools,  supported  by  residents 
of  the  neighborhood,  were  of  a  superior  class  and  many  of  them 
were  continued  in  their  profession  after  the  adoption  of  the  pub- 
lic school  system  under  the  Act  of  1854. 

The  memory  of  Tennent  school  and  its  surrounding  educa- 
tional influences  will  always  be  associated  with  Roseland  Female 
Institute  at  Hartsville  founded  and  conducted  by  the  Rev.  Jacob 
Belville.  The  few  surviving  scholars  of  Tennent  cannot  forget 
the  days  when  they  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  meeting  in  the  daily 


SCHOOL   BOY    MEMORIES  643 

exercise  upon  the  surrounding  highways,  the  long  processions  of 
the  girls  whom  they  met  in  like  parade  from  Roseland  and,  in 
spite  of  the  watchfulness  of  their  teachers,  exchanged  not  only 
glances  but  complimentary  remarks  and  signs  with  each  other. 
It  may  be  incidentally  remarked  that,  in  those  good  old  days, 
vigoKous  physical  exercise  was  deemed  beneficial  to  the  health 
and  vigor  of  mind  of  youth,  and  the  practice  of  carrying  school 
children  to  and  from  their  homes  in  busses,  as  now,  was  un- 
thought  of  and  would  have  been  condemned  by  sensible  parents 
and  taxpayers  as  detrimental  and  foolish. 

The  time  limit  of  this  society  to  speakers  will  not  admit  of  my 
referring  in  further  detail  to  all  of  these  institutions  of  learning. 
Giving  preference  to  the  ladies  and  following  my  own  inclination, 
I  will  briefly  refer  to  the  Roseland  school  and  its  founder,  the 
Rev.  Jacob  Belville.  His  father,  the  Rev.  Robert  B.  Belville, 
came  here  from  Mai-yland  in  1813.  As  pastor  of  the  Presbyter- 
ian church,  he  was  unusually  active  and,  later,  took  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  dissensions  which  resulted  in  the  division  of  the 
Warwick  church  congregation  and  the  formation  of  the  Warmin- 
ster church  in  the  village  of  Hartsville.  He  and  my  grand- 
father, Rev.  Thomas  B.  Montanye,  pastor  of  the  Southampton 
Baptist  church,  were  on  very  friendly  terms  and  with  the  one 
exception  which  I  am  about  to  narrate,  and  related  to  me  by  my 
mother,  had  no  differences.  My  grandfather,  who,  to  eke  out  his 
compensation  of  $300  per  year,  the  prevailing  clergyman's  salary 
in  those  days,  largely  payable  in  farm  produce,  was  obliged  to  re- 
sort to  other  pursuits  besides  preaching,  and  he  became  a-  farmer 
on  the  old  farm  in  Southampton  township.  His  outdoor  labors 
gave  him  a  ruddy  appearance  and  a  friend,  whether  through  mis- 
chief or  otherwise,  made  the  statement  to  him  that  Mr.  Belville 
had  said  he  was  brandy  faced.  Afterwards,  in  driving  on  the 
road  accompanied  by  my  mother,  then  a  young  girl  in  the  healthy 
complexion  of  youth,  he  met  Mr.  Belville.  My  grandfather 
halted  and  called  to  Mr.  Belville,  "Mr.  Belville,  I  want  to  in- 
troduce to  you  my  brandy  faced  daughter."  The  turning  of  the 
joke  upon  him  was  appreciated  and  thereafter,  so  far  as  known, 
taunting  remarks  ceased.  His  son,  Rev.  Jacob  Belville,  for  many 
years,  not  only  conducted  his  young  ladies'  school  but  was  the 
active  pastor  of  the  withdrawing  church. 


644  SCHOOL   BOV    MEMORIES 

The  bitterness,  growing  out  of  the  contention  in  our  courts 
at  and  before  the  final  separation  of  these  churches,  was  long 
prevailing  and  it  may  be  noted  that  but  few  of  the  original 
pupils  enrolled  at  Tennent,  were  of  the  families  of  those  who 
associated  themselves  with  the  Warminster  church.  Mr.  Bel- 
ville  being  an  eloquent  speaker,  during  the  Civil  War,  was  attive, 
prominent  and  influential  in  arousing  the  military  spirit  in  sus- 
taining the  cause  of  the  Union  and,  frequently,  attended  public 
functions  such  as  Ladies'  Aid  meetings  and  other  public  assem- 
blanges.  I  came  to  know  him  very  well  through  the  regard 
which  my  mother  always  held  him  in.  Although  she  was  an 
active  member  of  the  Baptist  church,  by  her  request  and  direc- 
tion, Mr.  Belville  officiated  at  the  marriages  of  her  children  dur- 
ing her  lifetime  and,  at  her  death,  conducted  the  funeral  services 
over  her  remains.  His  sister  was  twice  married,  her  first  husband 
being  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ely  by  whom  she  had  three  children,  Robert 
B.  Ely,  who  served  in  the  naval  forces  during  the  Civil  War, 
Rev.  Geo.  Wells  Ely  and  Rebecca  Ely.  She  became  a  widow  and, 
during  my  attendance  at  Tennent  school,  was  married  to  Rev. 
Mahlon  Long  and,  with  her  children,  came  to  the  homestead 
where  she  lived  in  harmony  with  Mrs.  Charles  Long,  then  a 
widow,  and  her  husband's  sisters,  who,  following  the  death  of 
his  brother,  had  conducted  for  Mr.  Long  the  boarding  house. 
Of  all  the  pupils  in  the  school,  Mr.  Long  selected  me  as  the  only 
classmate  of  Miss  Rebecca  Ely,  who  pursued  her  studies  at  home, 
and  he  favored  us  by  hearing  our  recitations  in  his  private  li- 
brary. Whether  this  preference  was  due  to  my  good  behavior 
and  modestry  or  to  the  fact  that  my  father  was  a  cousin  to  the 
Longs,  I  was  not  informed,  but  with  pleasure,  obeyed  orders. 
This  opens  the  door  for  the  narration  of  some  school  boy  pranks. 
On  one  occasion,  while  one  of  our  private  recitations  was  being 
held  in  his  library,  a  great  disturbance  and  noise  arose  in  the 
school  room,  the  boys  being  indifferent  to  the  attempted  correc- 
tions of  the  assistant  teachers.  Mr.  Long  promptly  dismissed  our 
recitation  and  returned  to  the  school  room.  At  the  noon  recess, 
he  said  to  the  boys,  "you  are  dismissed  until  the  afternoon 
session  excepting  those  boys  who  created  the  disturbance  in  the 
school  room,  they  will  remain."  After  a  moment,  every  boy  in 
the   school,   including   myself,   probably   the   only   innocent   one. 


SCHOOL   BOY    MEMORIES  645 

arose  and  walked  out  and  the  school  room  was  left  empty  with 
no  criminals  to  punish.  Underneath  the  school  room  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  closed  stairway,  was  a  room  called  the  lobby  in  which 
every  boy  had  his  separate  box  or  closet  for  keeping  superfluous 
clothing,  with  a  drawer  at  the  bottom  for  overshoes,  etc.  One 
night,  after  I  had  gone  to  my  home,  the  boys  assembled  in  this 
lobby  and,  with  a  spirit  of  mischief,  piled  these  small  drawers  in 
a  pyramid  at  the  foot  of  the  stairway.  They  then  extinguished 
the  light  and  started  a  racket.  As  anticipated,  Mr.  Long  quietly 
walked  down  the  steps  to  catch  them  in  their  mischief  and,  of 
course,  in  the  darkness  walked  into  the  pile  of  boxes  that  fell 
around  him  in  every  direction,  and,  the  boys  scampered  away. 
Notwithstanding  such  ungrateful  treatment,  for  he  was  extremely 
kind  and  considerate  as  well  as  forgiving  towards  his  pupils,  he 
was  held  in  high  regard  by  them,  for,  with  great  patience  as  well 
as  learning,  he  supervised  their  studies  and  corrected  them,  only, 
when  necessary  for  their  own  welfare  and  to  maintain  proper 
discipline  in  the  school.  Deferring  for  the  present  further  nar- 
rations of  experiences  at  the  Tennent  school  illustrative  of  its 
home-like,  instructive  and  enjoyable  character,  which  I  apprehend 
may  have  been  referred  to  by  Dr.  Henry  C.  Mercer  in  his  paper, 
I  will  briefly  call  to  memory  the  other  schools  to  which  I  have 
referred. 

In  its  day,  Loller  academy  was  the  most  prominent  seminary 
in  this  neighborhood  and,  for  many  years,  was  presided  over  by 
Hugh  Morrow  as  principal  and  I  can  recall  a  feeling  of  envy,  as 
a  small  boy  not  yet  of  school  age,  with  which  I  observed  my  elder 
brothers,  the  Montaynes',  the  Twinings',  the  Sprogells'  and  the 
other  larger  boys  of  the  neighborhood  departing  to  and  return- 
ing home  and  heard  their  experiences  and  adventures  at  Loller 
academy. 

Hatboro,  of  itself,  possessing  the  oldest  country  library  in  the 
state,  was  an  active  and  highly  favored  institution  of  learning 
prior  to  the  birth  of  Tennent  school.  The  Hart  school,  the  eight- 
square  schoolhouse,  the  Beans  and  Darrah  schools  were  "private 
schools"  depending  largely  upon  the  educational  spirit  of  the  com- 
munity. They  were  all  located  within  the  township  of  Warmin- 
ster and  conducted,  under  the  supervision  and  care  of  the  resi- 
dents, prior  to  the  final  formation  of  the  present  common  school 


646  SCHOOL   BOY    MEMORIES 

system  and  ihe  construction  of  the  present  township  schoolhoiises 
which  occupied  some  years.  I  can  say,  without  contradiction,  that 
the  teachers  of  those  schools,  although,  upon  the  authority  of  the 
late  Hugh  B.  Eastburn,  their  salaries  ranged  from  $17.92  to 
$21.57  a  month,  were  of  high  order.  Several  of  them 
were  respected  and  learned  clergymen  whose  compensation  from 
their  churches  ranged  around  $300  per  year  and  was,  therefore, 
correspondingly  meagre.  I  can  recall  the  following,  most  of 
whom  were  my  teachers  at  the  then  known  Locust  Grove  school, 
first  attended  by  me.  Rev.  Alfred  Earl,  pastor  of  Southampton 
church,  Joseph  Nichols,  who,  later,  conducted  a  prominent  private 
academy  at  Columbia,  Pennsylvania,  and  with  his  wife  (who  was 
Emily  Darrah),  was  active  in  hospital  and  war  w^ork.  He  was 
the  father  of  H.  S.  Prentiss  Nichols,  Esq.,  leading  attorney  in  the 
offtce  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  company.  There  was  also 
the  Rev.  D.  K.  Turner,  James  D.  Scott,  the  author  of  early  edi- 
tions of  maps  of  Bucks  county,  Elijah  W.  Beans,  later  a  promi- 
nent lawyer  at  Norristown,  Lydia  Anne  Ellis,  Elizabeth  Croas- 
dale  and  Samuel  Croasdale,  afterwards  colonel  in  the  128th 
Penna.  Regiment  and,  who  was  killed  at  the  Battle  of  Antietem. 
Some  of  them  I  remember  more  distinctly  for  personal  reasons. 
The  only  punishment  as  a  school  boy,  that  I  can  remember  was 
from  Mr.  Scott  who  once  pulled  my  ear  for  loud  talking,  and 
Elijah  Beans,  who,  I  being  left-handed,  insisted  I  should  write 
with  my  right  and  would  crack  me  over  the  knuckles  of  the  left 
hand  with  a  ruler  or  stick  whenever  he  caught  me  using,  in  that 
hand,  a  pen  or  a  pencil.  But  of  all  my  recollections,  I  have  to 
this  day  a  devoted  feeling  towards  the  only  two  female  teachers 
by  whom  I  was  instructed,  Lydia  A.  Ellis  and  Elizabeth  Croas- 
dale. Miss  Ellis  controlled  the  children  in  her  school  through 
kindness  that  was  almost  affectionate,  and  Miss  Croasdale,  not 
only  by  her  kindness  but  her  deep  interest  in  her  pupils,  was 
highly  regarded  and  gratefully  remembered  by  them.  As  Miss 
Croasdale  was  a  native  of  and,  for  a  long  time,  a  resident  and 
teacher  in  this  community,  it  may  be  of  some  interest  to  refer  to 
her  later  career  as  a  teacher.  After  making  her  fine  record  here, 
being  interested  in  the  arts,  she  went  to  Europe  for  the  purpose 
of  pursuing  her  studies,  and  became  a  graduate  of  fthe  Govern- 
ment Art  Training  School  at  South  Kensington,  London.     After 


SCHOOL   BOY    MEMORIES  647 

her  return,  she,  in  October,  1862,  became  connected  with  the 
Philadelphia  School  of  Design  for  Women  and,  in  1873,  was 
elected  principal.  Her  election,  as  declared  by  the  board  of  trus- 
trees,  was  justified  on  the  ground  that  such  services  as  hers  were 
needed  "on  account  of  the  importance  of  schools  of  design  for 
art,  manufactures  and,  particularly,  on  account  of  the  need  for 
training  of  young  girls  in  the  principal  and  practice  of  such  de- 
sign." She  is  described  as  an  untiring  worker  and  successful 
official.  After  having  been  principal  of  the  school  of  design  for 
many  years.  Miss  Croasdale  was  obliged,  on  account  of  her  ill 
health,  to  sever  her  connection  with  it.  In  1886,  Miss  Emily 
Sartain,  daughter  of  John  Sartain,  the  famous  engraver,  artist 
and  publisher,  was  elected  to  succeed  her.  Miss  Sartain  had  also 
pursued  the  study  of  art  abroad.  She  was  succeeded  by  her  niece, 
Harriet  Sartain,  famous  in  art  work  and  the  present  dean  of  this 
great  art  school.  She  is  prominently  connected  as  an  officer  and 
member  of  a  number  of  art  associations  of  Philadelphia,  and, 
being  a  lover  of  the  beautiful  in  nature,  maintains  a  summer  home 
along  the  banks  of  the  Delaware  in  Bucks  county. 

Prior  to  the  Act  of  1854,  the  school  directors  in  many  of  the 
towmships,  under  the  old  law,  passed  in  the  thirties,  had  taken  an 
interest  in  providing  for  the  erection  of  schoolhouses  by  the  as- 
sistance of  the  township  at  points  convenient  for  the  attendance 
of  scholars  at  private  schools,  for  in  those  days,  whatever  the 
distance  may  have  been,  it  was  not  deemed  necessary  that  the 
children  should  be  conveyed  to  the  doors  of  the  schoolhouse  by  a 
conveyance  at  the  public  expense,  but  the  parents  attended  to 
such  necessity,  if  it  existed,  and  exercise,  in  those  days,  was  not 
considered  injurious.  In  line  of  this  new  policy,  in  1841,  the  di- 
rectors of  Warminster  township,  John  Betts,  John  Engart,  John 
C.  Beans,  James  Hart,  Amos  Snyder  and  Joseph  Barnsley  se- 
cured the  three  lots  on  the  Street  road,  occupied  until  recently, 
by  schoolhouses.  There  being  no  county  superintendent  in  those 
days,  they,  of  course,  cooperated  with  the  advice  of  the  secretary 
of  the  commonwealth  who  performed  the  duties  of  state  superin- 
tendent, and  it  was  not  until  June  5,  1854,  that  Joseph  Fell  was 
elected  the  first  superintendent  of  the  county  schools  in  Bucks 
county.  He  inaugurated  the  district  institutes  comprising  two 
or  more  townships  where  the  subject  of  education  was  discussed. 


648  SCHOOL   BOY    MEMORIES 

During  the  period  of  Miss  Croasdale's  services  as  teacher,  I  be- 
came a  student  at  the  Tennent  school  and  remained  there  as  a 
day  scholar  until  1861,  going  from  and  returning  to  my  home 
daily,  almost  always  on  foot,  a  distance  of  about  three  miles.  I 
met  my  daily  companions  in  this  pilgrimage  at  appointed  places 
on  the  road  and  we  usually  accompanied  each  other.  Among 
them  were  Stace  B.  Beans,  Hutchinson  P.  Yerkes  and  the  Laugh- 
lin  boys. 

Prior  to  I860,  several  of  the  pupils  at  Tennent  had  attended 
the  Williston  seminary  at  East  Hampton,  Mass.,  and  the  reports 
of  their  advancement,  as  well  as  experience  in  depending  upon 
themselves,  being  favorable,  others  followed  them  in  later  years. 
About  the  beginning  of  December,  1861,  after  my  brother  had 
returned  from  this  school,  I  left  my  home  and,  unaccompanied, 
reached  East  Hampton  in  the  night  of  December  4th,  and  the 
next  day  met  several  of  my  Tennent  school  companions,  who 
had  preceded  me  in  previous  years.  To  illustrate  the  apprecia- 
tion of  the  instruction  given  his  pupils  by  Mr.  Long,  on  the  6th 
of  December,  I  took  my  examination  and,  to  my  satisfaction,  I 
was  admitted  to  the  senior  class,  to  graduate  in  1862,  in  which 
I  pursued  my  studies  until  the  end  of  the  term,  and  further,  I 
learned  the  course  of  instruction  I  had  pursued  was  really  in 
advance  of  that  famous  institution,  on  some  subjects.  I  gradu- 
ated the  following  spring,  in  1862.  No  better  evidence  could  be 
cited  to  indicate  that  Tennent  school,  in  its  instruction  of  pupils, 
was  up  to  date  with  the  highest  preparatory  institution  in  the 
country. 

The  inquiry  may  arise  as  to  why  so  many  of  the  boys  from 
Tennent  school  attended  at  East  Hampton  to  finish  their  educa- 
tion. The  explanation  is  at  hand.  The  Rev.  D.  K.  Turner  came 
to  Hartsville  to  teach  a  private  school  and,  as  preacher  at  the 
Neshaminy  church  of  Warwick,  by  transfer  from  the  East  Hamp- 
ton Congregational  Association  of  Massachusetts.  It  was  through 
his  advice  and  regard  for  him  that  induced  the  parents  of  these 
boys  to  continue  their  education  at  East  Hampton. 

I  may  be  excused  for  reference  to  a  personal  experience  to  ex- 
press my  devotion  to  the  memory  of  one  who  was  influential  and 
highly  esteemed  in  the  conduct  and  management  of  the  Tennent 
school. 


SCHOOL   BOY    MEMORIES  649 

It  was  the  habit,  encouraged  by  our  instructors,  to  spend  much 
time  in  play  upon  the  banks  of  the  Neshaminy,  where,  in  proper 
season,  was  our  daily  bathing  place  and,  in  the  winter,  no  greater 
enjoyment  was  ever  indulged  in  by  the  boys  of  this  school  than 
skating  upon  the  frozen  waters  of  the  stream.  One  occasion  of 
this  kind  came  near  being  fatal  to  me.  A  crowd  of  boys  in  their 
mischief,  gathered  around  some  men  engaged  in  cutting  ice,  for 
storage,  and  teasing  them,  when  one  of  them,  in  the  heat  of  pas- 
sion, or  under  other  exciting  influence,  suddenly  threw  a  heavy 
axe  into  the  crowd  which,  unluckily,  struck  me  in  the  ankle  and 
nearly  severed  my  foot.  That  accident  has,  probably,  controlled, 
more  than  anything  else,  my  pursuits  in  life.  I  refer  to  it,  how- 
ever, more  for  the  purpose  of  mentioning  a  lady  long  connected 
with  Tennent  school,  whose  memory  I,  and  all  who  knew  her, 
have  revered  and  blessed,  Mrs.  Charles  Long,  the  widow  of 
Charles  Long,  who,  with  his  brother.  Mahlon  Long,  founded  this 
school.  If  the  word  angel  can  be  applied  to  human  creatures, 
then  Mrs.  Long  was  deserving  of  it  and  will  always  be  so  re- 
membered by  those  who  knew  her.  I,  confidently,  believe  that 
she  saved  my  life  through  her  skill,  tenderness  and  attention 
following  that  accident,  of  which  I  am  reminded,  in  my  move- 
ments and  instructive  caution,  every  day  of  my  life.  Of  the  boys 
who  were  here  in  my  day,  for  nearly  all  have  gone  to  their  final 
rest,  I  can  recall  the  names  of  so  few  that  I  will  not  mention 
them  in  apprehension  that  I  may  be  charged  with  forgetfulness 
in  overlooking  a  former  associate  and  companion.  Rev.  Jacob 
Krewson,  more  than  three  years  ago,  informed  me  that  not  more 
than  five  of  the  boys  who  attended  the  school  at  that  time  were 
living.  He  has  gone  to  his  final  resting  place.  I  recall,  how- 
ever, an  amusing  incident  which  occurred  in  connection  with  my 
attendance  at  this  school.  On  a  Saturday  afternoon,  a  few  of  the 
boys,  thoughtlessly,  engaged  in  playing  a  game  of  cards,  at  that 
time  not  favored  as  now  by  the  pious  attendants  of  this  church. 
Their  game  was  in  progress  on  the  church  steps  when  a  young 
lady  Sunday  school  teacher  appeared  around  the  corner  to  enter 
the  church  door.  Such  a  scamper  by  the  boys  as  took  place  was 
most  amusing.  For  some  days,  we  lived  in  apprehension  that 
this  pious  young  lady  teacher  might  report  us  to  Mr.  Long. 
However,  nothing  of  the  kind  occurred  and  it  is  a  satisfaction 


650  THE    OLD    YORK    ROAD 

to  me  to  feel  that  I  at  least  was  forgiven  for  afterwards  I  was 
called  upon  to  act  as  groomsman  at  her  wedding.  That  she  has 
either  forgotten  the  incident  or  has  forgiven  us  is  proved  by  the 
circumstances  that,  while  still  amongst  us,  she  has  never  referred 
to  this  incident. 

In  concluding  these  reminiscences,  of  more  personal  interest 
to  me  than  to  any  one  else,  I  am  constrained  to  repeat  the  words 
of  the  Arabian  bard  who,  as  he  came  to  the  sea  shore,  spoke 
aloud  to  the  waves  and  exclaimed : 

"I  came  to  the  place  of  my  birth  and  cried,  'Oh!  the  friends  of  my 
youth,  where  are  they?'  An  echo  answered,  'Where  are  they?'  " 


The  Old  York  Road. 

BY   CAPTAIN   R.   C.    HOLCOMB,    (m.c),   U.    S.    N.,   PHILADELPHIA,   PA. 
(Neshaminy  Presbyterian  Church,  Hartsville,  .Tune  7,  1924.) 

SOME  apology  is  needed  for  attempting  to  tell  once  again 
the  story  of  the  Old  York  Road.  Hotchkin  and  Mears  have 
written  books  on  this  subject,  and  Faris,  in  his  "Old  Roads 
Out  of  Philadelphia,"  has  given  us  an  abbreviated  though  inter- 
esting account  of  it.  But  all  three  of  these  books  carry  us  only 
from  Philadelphia  to  the  Delaware  river  at  New  Hope,  hardly 
one-third  of  the  distance,  and  leave  the  rest  of  the  route  to  the 
imagination.  In  my  paper  I  have  tried  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
road  and  its  earlier  route  more  in  detail,  and  have  endeavored  to 
point  out,  as  nearly  as  I  can  determine,  what  route  our  ancestors 
followed  after  they  reached  the  Delaware  river.  The  Old  York 
Road  was  never  a  favorite  route  to  New  York,  until  stage  coach 
days,  and  an  older  route  had"  existed  long  before  the  days  the 
hosts  of  English  people  came  to  West  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania. 
To  trace  the  course  of  travel  over  the  Old  York  Road,  it  is  ad- 
visable to  review  the  course  of  the  older  routes  to  New  York. 

THE  PERIOD  BEFORE  1682. 

An  old  and  ancient  Indian  trail  led  across  New  Jersey  from 
the  Falls  to  the  Raritan  river,  where  New  Brunswick  now  is  lo- 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  .  651 

cated,  and  thence  along  the  Minisink  path  to  the  sea,  near  the 
mouth  of  Shrewsbury  river.  This  route  was  well  known  to  the 
Dutch  and  Swedes.  The  Swedish  engineer  Lindstrom,  on  his  map 
of  1654-5,  shows  several  trails  coming  into  the  Delaware  below 
the  Falls.  Augustin  Herrman  also  notes  the  path  on  his  map 
of  1673. 

George  Fox,  the  Quaker  writer,  gives  us  a  good  idea  of  a  route 
in  the  days  of  1672.^  He  seems  to  have  crossed  the  Delaware 
river  from  New  Castle.  There  must  have  been  some  settlements 
on  the  West  Jersey  side  though  he  does  not  mention  them.  Fop 
Jansen  Outhout  had  obtained  a  deed  from  Governor  Carteret, 
October  4,  1665,  to  purchase  a  tract  of  land  from  the  Indians 
there.  (E.  Jersey  patents  Liber  1,  pg.  35.)  He  had  previously 
obtained  a  license  to  keep  an  ordinary  over  against  New  Castle. 
He  was  still  living  there  when  Fen  wick  arrived  in  1675  and  set- 
tled Salem.  He  signed  his  name  to  the  West  Jersey  concessions. 
and  was  a  member  of  the  court  at  New  Castle  under  Andros  juris- 
diction in  1676.  He  gave  Fenwick  much  trouble,  because  Fenwick 
had  interfered  with  his  right  to  the  terrain  in  Salem  bounds.  ]\Iany 
other  Swedish  settlers,  resided  in  the  same  region,  and  the  names 
of  twenty-three  or  more  appear  on  Fenwick's  copy  of  the  con- 
cessions. A  host  of  others  appear  in  the  list  of  those  who  paid 
quit  rent  to  Samuel  Hedges,  Fenwick's  son-in-law.  Fox  makes 
no  mention  of  any  settlement  there.  Thus  he  writes  in  his  journal : 

"1672  3  mo  The  Town  we  went  to  was  a  Dutch  Town  called  New 
Castle;  wither  Robert  Widders  and  Geo  Pattison  came  to  us  next 
morning. 

We  departed  thence,  and  got  over  the  River  Delaware,  not  without 
great  danger  of  some  of  our  lives.  When  we  were  over  we  were 
troubled  to  get  guides  which  were  hard  to  get  and  very  changeable. 
Then  we  had  that  wilderness  country  to  pass  through,  since  called 
West  Jersey,  not  then  inhabited  by  English;  so  that  we  travelled  a 
whole  day  together  without  seeing  man  or  woman,  house  or  dwelling- 
place.  Sometimes  we  lay  in  the  woods  by  a  fire,  and  sometimes  in 
the  Indians  wigwams  or  houses.  We  came  one  night  to  an  Indian 
town  and  lay  at  the  King's  house  who  was  a  very  pretty  man.  Both 
he  and  his  wife  received  us  very  lovingly  and  his  attendants  (such  as 
they  were)  were  very  respectfull  to  us.  They  laid  us  mats  to  lie  on; 
but  provision  was  very  short  with  them,  having  caught  but  little  that 
day.     At  another   Indian  town,  where  we   staid,   the   King  came   to  us, 

1  John  Burnyeat,  who  accompanied  Fox,  also  wrote  a  journel,  which  gives 
the  journey  to  Oyster  Bay  in  detail. 


652  .  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

and  he  could  speak  some  English.  I  spoke  to  him  much,  and  to  his 
people,  and  they  were  very  loving  to  us.  At  length  we  came  to  Middle- 
town,  an  English  plantation  in  East  Jersey,  and  there  were  some  friends; 
but  we  could  not  stay  to  have  a  meeting  at  that  time,  being  earnestly 
pressed  in  our  spirits  to  get  to  the  half  years  meeting  of  Friends  at 
Oyster  Bay  in  Long  Island  which  was  near  at  hand.  We  went  with  a 
friend,  Richard  Hartshorn,  brother  to  Hugh  Hartshorn,  the  upholsterer 
in  London,  who  received  us  gladly  to  (his)  house  where  we  refreshed 
ourselves,  and  then  he  carried  us  and  our  horses  in  his  own  boat  over 
a  great  water  which  held  us  the  most  part  of  a  day  in  getting  over, 
and  set  us  upon  Long  Island." 

Upon  his  return,  Fox  took  another  course.  From  the  Raritan 
river  there  were  two  paths  to  the  Delaware ;  one  known  as  the 
upper,  the  other  as  the  lower  path.  These  paths  are  shown  in 
Map  II  of  the  Elizabethtown  Bill  in  Chancery.  On  that  map 
they  are  shown  as  the  "Upper  Road  from  Zuidt  river  to  Nieuw 
Amsterdam,"  which  starts  from  the  Delaware  just  above  the 
Assunpink  creek  at  what  is  now  Trenton ;  and  the  lower  road, 
which  is  called  the  "Lower  Road  from  Zuidt  river  to  Nieuw 
Amsterdam,"  starts  from  the  river  at  Burlington ;  both  reach 
Raritan  river  at  what  is  now  New  Brunswick.  Burlington  Island 
is  called  "Tinnakonk  Eyelandt"  on  the  map  prepared  by  Lind- 
strom  the  Swedish  engineer.  It  was  called  Upper  Tinnakonk  to 
distinguish  it  from  the  Lower  Tinnakonk  where  Governor  Printz 
made  his  residence.  Fox  calls  Burlington  island,  "Upper  Dini- 
dock."  The  island  was  also  sometimes  called  "Matineconck"  and  by 
that  name,  one  Peter  Jagou,  had  obtained  from  the  East  Jersey 
proprietors  a  license,  dated  June  18,  1668,  to  keep  an  ordinary  on 
Delaware  river  over  against  Matineconck  Island.  (E.  Jersey 
Deeds  Liber  III,  pg.  20.) 

As  to  the  house  where  they  slept,  the  night  before  crossing  the 
Delaware,  it  had  belonged  to  Peter  Jagou  and  had  been  raided  by 
the  Indians  in  1671,  and  the  raid  had  been  a  subject  of  investi- 
gation by  the  officials  of  the  Delaware  river  district  and  by  Gov- 
ernor Lovelace  in  council  at  New  York.  The  raid  had  resulted 
in  the  death  of  two  of  the  Dutch  settlers,  and  had  been  a  wanton 
act  on  the  part  of  the  Indians.  The  sister  of  one  of  the  Indians 
dying,  the  Indian,  called  Tashiowycans,  in  his  grief  declared  that, 
as  Manetto  had  killed  his  sister,  he  would  go  and  kill  some  Chris- 
tians, and,  thereupon,  the  murders  at  Matinconck  resulted.  Peter 
Jagou  and  Hendrick  Jacobs  were   in  possession  of   the   island. 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  653 

(N.  J.  Archives,  Vol.  I,  pg.  286.)  Several  settlers  resided  there 
about  that  time.  On  May  14,  1678,  Governor  Carteret  gave  a 
certificate  to  Cornelis  Joris.  Jurian  Marcellis  and  Jan  Classen 
alias  Jan  Swart  that  when  he  visited  Lay  Sie  (now  Lazy  or  Lassa) 
point  in  1666,  stating  he  found  them  residing  there  opposite 
Matinconck  Island  and  had  promised  to  confirm  their  Dutch 
patents. 

Fox  tells  of  his  return  journey  in  the  following  words,  1672, 
27th  6  mo. : 

"Being  clear  of  this  place  (Gravesend)  we  hired  a  sloop  and  the  wind 
serving,  set  out  for  the  New  Country  now  called  Jersey.  Passing  down 
the  bay  by  Couny-island,  Natton-island,  and  Stratton  (Staten)  Island 
we  came  of  Richard  Hartshorns,  at  Middletown  harbor  at  about  break 
of  day  the  27th  of  the  6  mo.  Next  day  we  rode  about  thirty  miles 
into  that  country,  through  the  woods,  and  over  very  bad  bogs,  one 
worse  than  all  the  rest;  the  descent  into  which  was  so  steep  that  we 
were  vain  to  slide  down  with  our  horses,  and  then  let  them  lie  and 
breathe  themselves  before  they  would  go  on.  This  place  the  people  of 
the  country  called  Purgatory.  We  got  at  length  to  Shrewsbury,  in  East 
Jersey  and  on  first  day  had  a  precious  meeting  there  to  which  friends 
and  other  people  came  far,  and  the  blessed  presence  of  the  Lord  was 
with  us.  The  next  day  we  passed  away  and  he  (John  Jay)  with  us, 
pretty  well,  about  sixteen  miles  to  a  meeting  at  Middletown  through 
woods  and  bogs  and  over  a  river  (South  River);  where  we  swam  our 
horses  and  got  over  ourselves  upon  a  hollow  tree.  After  the  meeting 
we  went  to  Middletown-harbor,  about  five  miles,  in  order  to  take  our 
long  journey  next  morning  through  the  woods  toward  Maryland,  hav- 
ing hired  Indians  for  our  guides.  I  determined  to  pass  through  the 
woods  on  the  other  side  of  Delaware  Bay,  that  we  might  head  the 
rivers  and  creeks  as  much  as  possible.  The  nineth  of  the  seventh 
month  we  set  forward,  passed  through  many  Indian  towns,  and  over 
some  rivers  and  bogs.  When  we  had  rid  about  forty  miles  we  made 
a  fire  at  night  and  lay  by  it.  As  we  came  among  the  Indians,  we 
declared  the  day  of  the  Lord  to  them.  Next  day  we  traveled  fifty 
miles  as  we  computed,  and  at  night  finding  an  old  house  which  the  In- 
dians had  forced  the  people  to  leave,  we  made  a  fire,  and  lay  there  at 
the  head  of  Delaware  Bay.  The  next  day  we  swam  our  horses  over  a 
river  about  a  mile,  twice,  first  to  an  island  called  LTpper-Dinidock,  then 
.to  the  main  land,  having  hired  Indians  to  help  us  over  in  their  canoes. 
This  day  we  could  reach  about  thirty  miles  and  came  to  a  sweeds 
house  where  we  got  a  little  straw  and  lay  that  night.  Next  day,  having 
hired  another  guide,  we  traveled  about  forty  miles  through  the  woods 
and  made  a  fire  at  night  by  which  we  lay  and  dried  ourselves,  for  we 
were  often  wet  in  our  travel.  Next  day  we  crossed  over  a  desperate 
river  which  had  in  it  many  rocks  and  broad  stones,  very  hazardous  to 


654  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

US  and  our  horses.  From  here  we  came  to  Christian-river  where  we 
swam  our  horses  over  and  went  ourselves  in  canoes;  but  the  sides  of 
the  river  were  so  miry,  that  some  of  the  horses  had  Hke  to  have  been 
laid  up.  From  thence  we  came  to  New  Castle,  heretofore  called  New 
Amstel  and  being  very  wearj^,  and  inquiring  in  the  town  where  we 
might  buy  some  corn  for  our  horses,  the  governor  came  and  invited 
me  to  his  house,  and  afterwards  desired  me  to  lodge  there,  telling  me 
he  had  a  bed  for  me  and  that  I  should  be  welcome." 

Shortly  after  the  settlement  of  Burlington  in  West  New  Jersey 
in  the  year  1677,  by  the  Yorkshire  and  London  Company  of 
Friends,  Danker  and  Sluyter  passed  on  their  way  from  New  York 
to  visit  Augustin  Herrman  who  then  resided  on  the  shore  of 
Chesapeake  bay.  They  took  the  upper  route  across  the  Jerseys 
which  led  directly  to  the  Falls  of  Delaware,  so-called  at  that  time, 
and  where  Trenton  is  now  located.  They  were  a  party  of  seven, 
consisting  of  Dankers  and  his  comrade  Sluyter,  of  Ephraim  Herr- 
man a  son  of  Augustin  Herrman,  the  new  bride  of  Ephraim,  her 
brother  and  two  servants.  They  left  Piscattaway  the  morning  of 
November  16,  1679,  and  Dankers  tells  of  their  journey  as  follows : 

"We  rode  about  two  English  miles  through  Pescattaway  to  the 
house  of  one  Mr.  Greenland  (See  Whiteheads  Early  History  of  Perth 
Amboy  402)  who  kept  an  ordinary  (tavern)  there.  We  had  to  pass 
the  night  here,  because  it  was  the  place  of  crossing  the  Millstone 
(Raritan)  River,  which  they  called  the  falls.  Close  by  here,  also,  was 
the  dwelling  of  some  Indians  who  were  of  service  to  this  Mr.  Green- 
land in  many  things.  We  were  better  lodged  and  entertained  here  for 
we  slept  upon  a  good  bed,  and  strengthened  ourselves  against  the 
future. 

17th  Friday.  As  the  water  was  high  in  the  Kill  or  Millstone  river, 
Ephraim  would  not  ride  over  the  fall,  on  account  of  the  current  of 
water,  which  made  it  dangerous.  He  therefor,  determined  after  break- 
fast we  should  be  set  across  in  a  canoe,  and  the  horses  should  swim 
across,  as  they  did.  We  reached  the  other  side  about  nine  o'clock  and 
proceeded  on  horse  back.  The  road  from  here  to  the  Falls  of  the 
South  river,  runs  for  the  most  part  W.S.W.,  and  then  W.  It  is  noth- 
ing but  a  foot  path  for  men  and  horses  between  the  trees  and  through 
the  small  shrubs,  although  we  came  to  places  where  there  were  large 
plains,  beset  with  a  few  trees,  and  grown  over  with  long  grass  which 
was  not  the  most.  When  you  have  ridden  a  piece  of  the  way,  you  can 
see  over  the  lands  of  Nevesink  far  oflf  on  the  left  hand,  into  the  ocean, 
affording  a  fine  view.  The  land  we  rode  over  was  neither  the  best,  nor 
the  worst.  The  woods  consist  of  reasonably  straight  oak  and  hickory, 
with  some  chestnut,  but  they  are  not  verj^  close.  They  would  there- 
fore afford  tolerabh'  good  tillable  land:  but  we  observed  the  best  pieces 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  655 

lay  here  and  there  along  the  creeks.  We  saw  many  deer  running  be- 
fore us  out  of  the  road,  sometimes  five  or  six  together,  starting  off  at 
the  sound  of  the  horses.  When  about  half  way  you  come  to  a  high, 
but  very  rocky  hill,  which  is  very  difficult  for  man  and  beast  to  walk 
upon.  After  crossing  it,  you  come  to  a  large  valley,  the  descent  to 
which  from  this  hill  is  very  steep,  by  a  very  shrubby  road;  and  you 
must  dismount,  in  order  to  lead  your  horses  down  carefully,  as  well  as 
to  descend  carefully  yourselves.  We  were  in  the  middle  of  this  valley, 
when  a  company  met  us  on  horse  back  from  South  River,  (Delaware). 
They  were  acquaintances  of  Ephraim,  and  some  of  them  were  his  re- 
lations. They  wished  each  other  welcome,  and  mutually  inquired  after 
various  matters,  after  which  we  separated,  exchanging  one  of  our 
horses,  which  Ephraims  brother  rode,  and  which  was  to  be  sent  back 
to  the  Manathans,  for  one  of  theirs,  which  must  return  to  South  River. 
We  rode  on  a  little  further  and  came  to  Millstone  river  again,  which 
runs  so  crookedly  that  you  cross  it  at  three  different  places.  After  we 
crossed  it  now  we  took  the  bridles  from  the  horses  in  order  that  they 
might  eat  something,  while  we  set  down  and  dined  together,  upon  what 
we  had  in  our  travelling  bags.  We  remounted  in  about  an  hour,  and 
rode  on  continuing  our  way  and  course  as  before.  About  three  o'clock 
we  came  again  to  Millstone  river,  which  we  again  waded  over,  but  it 
was  gradually  become  smaller.  Resuming  our  route  we  arrived  at 
the  Falls  of  the  South  river  about  sundown,  passing  a  creek  where  a 
new  grist  mill  (Stacy's  mill)  was  erected  by  the  Quakers  who  live 
hereabouts  in  great  numbers,  and  daily  increase.  But  it  seemed  to  us 
as  if  this  mill  could  not  stand  long  especially  if  the  flow  of  water  were 
heavy  because  the  work  was  not  well  arranged.  We  rode  over  here, 
and  went  directly  to  the  house  of  the  person  who  had  constructed  it  who 
was  a  Quaker,  where  we  dismounted,  and  willingly  dismissed  our 
horses.  The  house  was  very  small  and  from  the  incivility  of  the  inmates 
and  the  unfitness  of  the  place,  we  expected  poor  lodgings.  As  it  was 
still  daylight  and  we  had  heard  so  much  oi  the  Falls  of  the  South 
River,  or,  at  least,  we  had  imagined  it,  that  we  went  back  to  the  river 
in  order  to  look  at  them;  but  we  discovered  we  had  deceived  ourselves 
in  our  ideas.  We  had  supposed  it  was  a  place  where  the  water  came 
tumbling  down  in  great  quantity  and  force  from  a  great  height  above, 
over  a  rock,  into  an  abyss  as  the  word  falls  would  seem  to  imply,  and 
as  we  had  heard  and  read  of  the  Falls  of  the  North  river  and  other 
rivers.  But  these  Falls  of  the  South  river  are  nothing  but  a  place  of 
about  two  English  miles  in  length,  or  not  so  much,  where  the  river  is 
full  of  stones  almost  across  it,  which  are  not  very  large,  but  in  con- 
sequence of  the  shallowness  the  water  runs  rapidly  and  breaks  against 
them,  causing  some  noise,  but  not  very  much,  which  place,  if  it  were 
necessary  could  be  made  navigable  on  one  side.  As  no  Europeans  live 
above  the  falls,  they  remain  so.  This  millers  house  is  the  highest  up 
the  river  hitherto  inhabited.  Here  we  had  to  lodge,  and  although  we 
were  too  tired  to  eat,  we  had  to  remain  sitting  upright  the  whole  night. 


656  THE    OLD   YORK    ROAD 

not  being  able  to  find  room  enough  to  lie  upon  the  ground.  We  had 
a  fire  however,  but  the  dwellings  are  so  wretchedly  constructed,  that  if 
you  are  not  so  close  to  the  fire  to  almost  burn  yourself  you  cannot  keep 
warm,  for  the  wind  blows  through  them  everywhere.  Most  of  the 
English  and  many  others  have  their  houses  made  of  nothing  but  clap- 
boards, as  they  call  them  there,  in  this  manner.  They  first  made  a  wood- 
en frame,  the  same  as  they  do  in  Westphalia,  and  at  Altona,  but  not  so 
strong;  then  they  split  the  boards  of  clapwood,  so  that  they  are  like 
coopers  pipe  staves,  except  they  are  not  bent.  These  are  made  very 
thin  with  a  knife,  so  that  the  thickest  end  is  about  a  pinck  (little 
finger)  thick,  and  the  other  is  made  sharp  like  the  edge  of  a  knife.  They 
are  nailed  on  the  outside  of  the  frame  with  the  ends  (edges)  lapped 
over  each  other.  They  are  not  usually  laid  so  close  together  as  to  pre- 
vent you  from  sticking  a  finger  between  them,  in  consequence  either  of 
their  not  being  well  joined,  or  the  boards  being  crooked.  When  it  is 
cold  and  windy  the  best  people  plaster  them  with  clay.  Such  are 
most  all  the  English  houses  in  the  country,  except  those  they  have 
which  were  built  by  people  of  other  nations.  Now  this  house  was  new 
and  airy;  and  as  the  night  was  very  windy  from  the  north,  and  ex- 
tremely cold  with  clear  moonshine  I  will  not  readily  forget  it.  Ephraim 
and  his  wife  obtained  a  bed;  but  we  passed  through  the  night  without 
sleeping  much. 

18  Saturday.  About  ten  o'clock  after  we  had  breakfasted,  we  stepped 
into  a  boat,  in  order  to  proceed  on  our  journey  down  the  river.  The 
ebb  tide  was  half  run  out.  Although  there  is  not  much  flood  here  as 
it  is  stopped  by  the  falls,  yet  the  water  rises  and  falls  with  the  ebb  or 
flood,  or  through  the  ebb  or  flood,  because  the  water  although  it  runs 
down,  increases  in  through  the  flood,  in  consequence  of  its  being  forced 
i.p,  and  is  diminished  with  the  ebb  because  the  ebb  gives  it  so  much 
the  more  course  to  run  down.  We  went  along,  then,  moving  with  the 
tide;  but  as  Ephraim  was  suffering  with  quartan  ague,  and  it  was  now 
its  time  to-  come  on,  we  had  to  go  and  lie  by  the  banks  of  the  river  in 
order  no  make  a  fire,  as  he  could  not  endure  the  cold  in  the  boat.  This 
continued  for  about  an  hour  and  a  half.  The  water  was  rising,  and  we 
had  to  row  against  the  current  to  Burlington,  leaving  the  island  of 
Matinikonk  lying  on  the  right  hand.  This  island,  formerly  belonged  to 
the  Dutch  governor,  who  had  made  it  a  pleasure  ground  or  garden, 
built  good  houses  upon  it  and  sowed  and  planted.  He  also  dyked  and 
cultivated  a  large  piece  of  meadow  or  marsh,  from  which  he  gathered 
more  grain  than  from  any  land  which  had  been  made  from  the  wood- 
land into  tillable  land.  The  English  governor  at  the  Manathans,  now 
held  it  for  himself,  and  had  hired  it  out  to  some  Quakers,  who  were 
living  upon  it  at  present.  It  is  the  best  and  largest  Island  in  the  South 
river;  and  is  about  four  miles  in  length  and  two  in  breadth.  It  lies 
nearest  the  east  side  of  the  river.  At  the  end  of  this  Island  lies  the 
Quakers'  village  Burlington,  which  east  side  of  the  river  the  Quakers 
have  entirely  in  their  possession,  but  how  they  came  into  its  possession 


THE   OLD    YORK    ROAD  657 

v^e  will  show  in  another  place.  Before  arriving  at  this  village  we 
stopped  at  the  house  of  one  Jacob  Hendricks,  from  Holstein,  living  on 
this  side.  He  was  an  acquaintance  of  Ephraim  who  would  have  gone 
to  lodge  there,  but  he  was  not  at  home.  We  therefore  rowed  onto  the 
village  in  search  of  lodgings,  for  it  had  been  dark  all  of  an  hour  or 
more;  but  proceeding  a  little  further,  we  met  this  Jacob  Hendricks  in 
a  canoe  with  hay.  As  we  were  now  at  the  village  we  went  up  to  the 
ordinary  tavern,  but  there  was  no  lodgings  to  be  obtained  there,  where- 
upon we  reembarked  in  the  boat,  and  rowed  back  to  Jacob  Hendricks, 
who  received  us  kindly,  and  entertained  us  according  to  his  ability.  The 
■house  although  not  much  larger  than  where  we  were  last  night,  was 
somewhat  better  and  tighter,  being  made  according  to  the  Swedish 
mode,  and  as  they  usually  built  their  houses  here,  which  are  blockhouses, 
being  nothing  less  than  entire  trees  split  through  the  middle  or  squared 
out  of  the  rough,  and  placed  in  the  form  of  a  square  upon  each  other, 
as  high  as  they  wish  to  have  the  house;  the  ends  of  these  timbers  are 
let  into  each  other,  about  a  foot  from  the  ends,  half  of  one  into  half  of 
the  other.  The  whole  structure  is  thus  made  without  a  nail  or  a  spike. 
The  ceiling  and  roof  do  not  exhibit  much  finer  work,  except  among  the 
most  careful  people  who  have  the  ceiling  planked  and  a  glass  window. 
The  doors  are  wide  enough  but  very  low,  so  that  you  have  to  stoop  in 
entering.  These  houses  are  quite  tight  and  warm;  but  the  chimney  is 
placed  in  a  corner.  My  comrade  and  myself  had  some  deer  skins 
spread  upon  the  floor  to  lie  on.  and  we  were,  therefore,  quite  well  ofif, 
and  could  get  some  rest.  It  rained  hard  during  the  night,  and  snowed 
and  froze  and  continued  so,  until  the  19th  Sunday  and  for  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  day  affording  little  prospect  of  our  leaving. 

OLD  CROOKHORN,   AT   FALLS   OF  DELAWARE. 

About  the  same  time  there  was  a  road  extending  along  the 
western  shore  of  Delaware  river,  all  the  way  from  Marcus  Hook 
(below  Chester,  Pa.)  to  the  Falls  of  Delaw^are  (opposite  Tren- 
ton). This  road  had  been  duly  taken  under  the  cognizance  of  the 
court  at  Upland  (now  Chester).  A  tract  of  land  some  sixteen 
miles  along  the  Delaware,  eight  miles  above  and  eight  miles  below 
the  Falls  had  been  purchased  from  the  Indians  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  New  York,  the  purchase  being  made  about  the  time 
John  Fenwick  and  his  party  arrived  in  the  lower  reaches  of  the 
river  for  the  settlement  of  Salem. 

On  September  23,  1675,  the  sachems  Mamarakiekan,  Aurick- 
tan,  Sackoquewan,  and  Mameckos  deeded  to  Governor  Andros 
of  New  York,  a  tract  of  land  on  the  west  side  of  the  Delaw^are  ex- 
tending eight  or  nine  miles  above  and  the  same  distance  below  the 


658  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

Falls.-  The  names  of  these  chiefs,  as  written  in  the  signatures  to 
the  deed  are  given  as  Sackoquenam,  Alamakackickan,  Arisicktan 
and  Mameckos.  The  consideration  for  this  conveyance  was  60 
fathom  of  wampum,  6  coats  of  Dufifles,  6  blankets,  6  coats  of 
douzens,  6  shirts,  ^  an  anchor  of  powder,  40  bars  of  lead,  6  guns, 
6  kettles,  30  axes,  50  knives,  2  anchors  of  rum,  50  looking  glasses, 
50  combs,  30  hows,  20  pairs  of  stockings,  10  pairs  of  shoes,  100 
tobacco  pipes,  1  pound  of  paint,  100  awls  and  100  jews  harps. 
(Hannas  Wilderness  Trail,  pg.  91.) 

On  September  18,  1679,  Captain  Edmund  Cartwell.  the  high 
sheriff  on  Delaware,  wrote  to  Governor  Andros  at  New  York  re- 
garding the  land  in  the  purchase.  It  appears  that  he  had  made 
some  surveys  of  land  such  as  are  shown  on  the  map  obtained  by 
Bankers  and  Slyter  at  New  York  in  1679,  and  his  letter  informed 
the  Governor  that  while  making  these  surveys  on  the  west  side  of 
the  river  Delaware  from  the  Falls  southward  to  the  lower  end 
of  Orechton  Island,  here  Matapis  and  Ockenichan^  stopped  him 
from  proceeding  further,  saying  they  were  owners  of  the  land 
below  and  had  not  yet  been  paid  their  title.  About  the  Falls  on 
that  side  had  long  been  located  an  Indian  plantation,  shown  upon 
the  map  recently  brought  to  light  by  Colonel  Paxson  of  Phila- 
delphia, and  which  map  was  used  by  Penn  to  advertise  and  illus- 
trate his  purpose  to  colonize  Pennsylvania.  Lindstrom,  writing 
of  this  region  says,  "Along  the  west  side  of  the  river  from 
above  the  Falls  of  Asinpinck  to  the  Island  Menahosick  and  lower 
down  to  Sipaessing,  the  country  is  everywhere  level,  naturally 
favorable  to  raise  maize.  It  has  been  inhabited  and  cultivated 
from  time  immemorial  by  the  Indians."  (Geographia  Americana.) 

During  1679  several  grants  were  made  by  Governor  Andros  of 
New  York  to  land  directly  opposite  the  lands  held  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Falls  by  John  Lambert,  Mahlon  Stacey,  and  William 
Emley  of  West  New  Jersey.  The  lands  of  all  except  Thomas 
Woods  are  shown  on  the  map  used  by  Dankers  and  Sluyter. 
John  Woods'  house  is  mentioned  in  Penn's  purchase  from  the  In- 
dians, and  his  lands  are  shown  on  Thomas  Holmes'  map.  John 
Woods  arrived  in  the  Shield  in  1678,  having  come  from  Atter- 

2  The  tract  corresponds  with  that  conveyed  to  "William  Penn  by  the  Indians 
in  1682.  (Penna.  Arch.  1st  Series,  Vol.  I,  p.  47)  the  bounds  being  practically 
the   same. 

3  One  of  the  grantees  mentioned  in  the  deed  to  Penn. 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  659 

clife  in  Parish  of  Sheafield,  County  of  York.  John  Ackerinan 
and  his  son  held  three  hundred  and  ninety-four  acres.  The  elder 
John  was  one  of  the  first  overseers  of  the  road  from  Marcus 
Hook  having  been  appointed  by  the  court  at  Upland  in  1681  for 
that  part  of  the  road  extending  from  Samuel  ClitT's  house  near 
the  present  location  of  Bristol  to  Gilbert  Wheeler's  house  at  the 
Falls.  Robert  Lucas  of  Deverall,  Longbridge,  County  of  Wilts, 
yeoman,  had  arrived  in  the  river  4th  of  4  mo.  1679,  in  the  Eliza- 
beth and  Mary  of  Weymouth.  He  made  a  purchase  of  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  acres  and  the  following  year  his  wife  Eliza- 
beth arrived  in  the  Content  bringing  their  children,  John,  Giles, 
Edward,  Robert,  Elizabeth,  Rebecca,  Mary,  and  Sarah.  Samuel 
Seyle  had  two  hundred  and  eighteen  acres  and  Richard  Ridgway 
the  same  amount.  Richard  and  his  wife  Elizabeth  came  over 
from  Welford.  He  was  a  tailor.  They  arrived  in  the  same  ship 
with  Gilbert  Wheeler,  the  Jacob  and  Mary,  which  arrived  in  the 
river  7  mo.  1679.  Their  children  were  Thomas,  b.  25,  5  mo.  1677, 
and  Richard,  b.  27th  2  mo.  1680.  Robert  Schooley  came  over 
in  the  "Shield"  in  1678  and  purchased  two  hundred  and  six 
acres.  His  brother  Thomas  came  in  the  "Martha"  in  1677,  and 
took  up  land  next  to  his  brother.  Robert  and  Thomas  Schooley. 
both  then  of  "Crewcon"  as  that  district  was  then  called,  signed  a 
petition  that  no  liquor  be  sold  to  the  Indians.  William  Biles  of 
Dorchester  in  County  of  Dorset  and  Johannah  his  wife  arrived 
in  the  Delaware,  on  the  "Elizabeth  and  Sarah,"  from  Weymouth, 
4th  of  4  mo.  1679.  He  took  up  three  hundred  and  nine  acres  of 
land.  Gilbert  Wheeler  of  London,  fruitier,  and  Martha,  his 
wife,  arrived  in  the  river  12th  7  mo.  1679,  in  the  ship  "Jacob  and 
Mary,"  Mr.  Daniel  Moore,  master.  Children,  William,  Briant 
and  Martha  Wheeler.  Servants,  Charles  Thomas,  Robert  Barson 
and  Catherine  Knight.  Gilbert  Wheeler  owned  a  proprietary 
right  in  West  New  Jersey,  but  for  some  reason  he  elected  to 
settle  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river  where  he  took  up  two  hun- 
dred and  five  acres  including  an  island  in  the  river.  The  records 
of  the  court  at  Upland  show  that  in  March,  1680,  Thomas  Kerby 
and  Robert  Drawton,  servants,  sued  Gilbert  Wheeler  for  wages. 
Kerby  wanted  pay  for  seventy  days  between  October  7,  1679,  and 
January  7,  1680,  "so  much  as  is  usuall  to  be  given  pr  day  wch  is 
fower  (4)  guilders  pr  diem  wth  costs."    The  court  allowed  Ker- 


660  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

by  and  Drawton  each  fifty  stivers  (two  and  a  half  guilders)  per 
day,  the  latter  to  be  paid  "in  corne  and  other  good  pay  in  ye 
river."  (Scharf  and  Wescotts  History  of  Phila.,  pg.  136.)  Gil- 
bert Wheeler  did  not  get  along  very  well  with  his  neighbor  Wil- 
liam Biles  or  Byles,  whose  occupation  is  given  in  the  book  of  ar- 
rivals as  a  "vile  monger."  This  has  been  translated  to  mean 
a  phial  or  bottle  seller.  At  any  rate,  on  April  12,  1680,  W^iUiam 
Biles  "member  of  the  new  court  at  the  falls  of  the  Delaware"  ap- 
peared at  New  York  and  obtained  a  warrant  to  summon  Gilbert 
Wheeler  "to  appear  here  for  selling  drink  to  ye  Indians."  The 
same  day  a  petition  from  "the  inhabitants  at  the  falls,"  dated  the 
12th  and  a  return  from  the  "Court  of  Creekcorne  at  the  falls"^ 
sending  in  the  names  of  four  magistrates  "according  to  order" 
was  read  before  the  governor  and  council.  On  September  13, 
1680,  a  petition  of  the  inhabitants  of  Creekhorne  on  the  Delaware 
was  received.  They  charged  Gilbert  Wheeler  with  selling  rum 
to  the  Indians  and  state  they  suspect  William  Biles  to  sell  rum 
himself.  (Davis  History  of  Bucks  County,  pg.  106.)  Thus  the 
bottle  seller  was  himself  accused  of  ancient  pastime  now  called 
bootlegging.  Sometime  later,  July  13,  1693,  Gilbert  AMieeler 
was  appointed  a  justice  of  peace.  (Penn  Arch  Vol.  IX,  p.  744.) 
In  the  early  fall  of  1682  the  Upland  court  appointed  William 
Biles  overseer  and  surveyor  of  the  road  from  the  falls  as  far  as 
Poquessing  creek.  This  was  one  of  the  last  official  acts  of  this 
court  as  shortly  afterwards  the  territory  was  turned  over  to  the 
agents  of  William  Penn. 

William  Penn,  when  he  came  over,  took  up  his  manor  of  Penns- 
bury  just  below  these  settlements  of  the  Crookhorn.  One  of  the 
early  courts  under  Penn's  jurisdiction  met  4th  day,   1st  month, 

1683,  at  the  dwelling  of  Gilbert  Wheeler,  "Present,  the  governor 
William  Penn,  with  justices  James  Harrison,  Jonathan  Otter, 
William  Yardley,  William  Beaks  and  Thomas  Fitzwater.  Phineas 
Pemberton  clerk."  The  next  court  was  held  at  Pennsbury  and 
the  next  again  at  Gilbert  Wheeler's  on  the  7th  of  8th  month, 

1684.  (W^atson's  Annals,  Vol.  II.) 

The  road  across  the  Delaware  from  the  west  shore,  according 
to  the  records  of  the  court  at  Upland,  ended  at  Gilbert  Wheeler's 

4  The  village  or  town  of  Crewkherne  near  the  borders  of  Dorset  was  prob- 
ably the  birthplace  of  William  Biles  who  gave  the  name  to  the  town  at  the 
Falls.     (W.  S.  E.) 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  661 

house.  Many  travelers  stopped  there  who  took  the  hind  route. 
Col.  Cuthbert  Potter,  a  representative  of  the  council  in  Vir- 
ginia, reached  the  Falls  July  18,  1690,  and  called  at  Governor 
Penn's  at  Pennsbury  and  lodged  at  Gilbert  Wheeler's ;  the  next 
day  he  took  horse  and  guide  across  the  Jerseys  to  John  "Onions" 
(Inion)  at  what  is  now  New  Brunswick. 

OLD   NOTTINGHAM,   AT  THE  FALLS  OF  DELAWARE. 

Lindstrom.  in  his  Geographia  Americana,  has  left  us  a  de- 
scription of  the  river  as  he  found  it  (1654-56).  As  to  the  region 
of  the  river  between  Burlington  Island  and  the  Falls  at  Trenton, 
he  gives  the  following  account : 

"From  Teackonick  up  to  the  Falls  of  Asinpinck  and  above  it,  along 
the  East  side  of  the  River,  the  Country  is  fine  and  good,  suitable  to 
raise  black  and  blue  corn,  Sweedish  grain  &c.  The  level  part  is  well 
suited  for  pastures,  the  Indians  have  a  long  time  inhabited  this  part, 
and  still  occupy'  it.  Larger  vessels  than  those  drawing  five  or  six  feet 
of  water  cannot  sail  higher  up  than  the  Falls  of  Asinpinck.  Here  are 
few  or  no  flats.  It  is  inconvenient  to  land  on  account  of  the  many 
sandbanks  and  shallows.  No  vessels  of  a  larger  size  than  Boats  and 
Canoes  can  sail  up  higher  than  to  the  Falls  nor  above  it." 

The  Yorkshire  Company  of  Quakers,  the  preferred  creditors 
of  Byllinge,  chose  their  one-tenth  share  as  this  land  from  the 
Falls  of  Delaware  down  to  Burlington. 

The  district  at  the  Falls  of  the  Delaware,  on  West  Jersey  side, 
when  first  organized  into  a  township,  was  called  Nottingham. 
Several  local  historians  tell  us  that  it  received  its  name  from 
Isaac  Watson  who  came  from  Nottingham  in  Old  England. 
There  is  some  anachronism  in  this  statement  as  Isaac  Watson 
was  a  little  boy,  aged  between  10  and  14  years,  when  William 
Emley,  Mahlon  Stacy  and  Thomas  Lambert  were  executing  deeds 
for  land,  calling  themselves  residents  of  Nottingham,  at  the  Falls 
of  the  Delaware.  Isaac  Watson  was  born  at  Fairfield,  Notting- 
ham, 1670,  and  with  two  brothers  and  a  sister  had  accompanied 
his  father,  William  Watson,  to  West  Jersey. -"^  Before  1688  there 
were  no  townships  or  constabularies  in  West  Jersey.  According 
to  the  minute  book  of  the  Supreme  Court  6  Mo.  6,  1688,  Burling- 
ton county  was  divided  into  townships,  and  the  respective   di- 

5  Isaac  Watson  became  quite  prominent  later,  the  reference  probably  should 
be  to  William  ,his  father,  who  was  a  handholder  long-  before  the  division  into 
townships  and  one  of  the  purchasers  of  Indians.      (W.  S.  E. ) 


662  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

visions  of  each  constabulary  or  township  as  recommended  by  a 
"grand  inquest"  was  approved  by  the  court.  "Nottingham  town- 
ship to  lye  between  Crosswicks  Creek  and  Delaware  river  and 
northward  soe  farr  as  at  present  inhabited."  Other  townships 
approved  and  bounded  were  Chesterfield,  Mansfield,  Springfield, 
Willingborrow,  Northampton,  Chester  and  Eversham.  (N.  J. 
Hist,  Proc.  Ill  7:36.) 

Before  that  date  the  district  at  the  Falls  was  known  as  Not- 
tingham. Thomas  Lambert  purchased  one-twelfth  of  a  share  of 
West  Jersey  from  Mahlon  Stacy,  January  29,  1678,  and  March 
12,  1679-80,  he  purchased  one-half  of  one-sixth  of  a  share  from 
Robert  Stacy  and  in  this  latter  deed  he  is  called  "Thomas  Lam- 
bert of  Nottingham  near  the  Falls  of  Delaware."  (W.  J.  Deeds 
Liber  B.  pt.  1,  p.  313.)  In  a  deed  dated  January  22,  1683-4, 
Mahlon  Stacy  sold  one  hundred  acres  of  land  to  Robert  Pearson 
in  which  the  grantor  calls  himself  "Mahlon  Stacy  of  Nottingham 
at  the  Falls  of  Delaware."  (W.  J.  Deeds  Liber  B  pt.  2,  p.  505.) 
The  same  year,  March  15,  1683-4,  "William  Emley  of  Notting- 
ham near  the  Falls  of  Delaware"  sold  one-thirty-second  of  a 
share  in  West  Jersey  to  John  Full  wood.  It  is  thus  evident  that 
the  district  was  called  Nottingham  from  its  earliest  settlement. 
Others  whose  names  are  mentioned  as  residents  of  Nottingham 
before  1692  are  Robert  Schooley,  John  Lambert,  William  Wat- 
son, John  Abbott,  Robert  Chapman,  Thomas  Gilbertthorp,  Robert 
Murfin,  James  Pharow  and  Joshua  Wright.  A  list  of  those  taxed 
in  Nottingham  in  the  year  of  1695  is  as  follows :  Mahlon  Stacy, 
Thomas  Lambert,  Ann  Pharo,  John  Lambert,  Jr.,  Robert  Pear- 
son, Samuel  Overton,  Thomas  Gilbertthorp,  William  Ouicksall, 
William  Watson,  Sarah  Scholey,  W^illiam  Biddle,  Matthew  Clay- 
ton, Nathaniel  Petit,  Moses  Petit,  Jonathan  Davis,  Ralph  Hunt, 
Theophilus  Phillips,  John  Lambert,  Sr.,  Joshua  Wright,  Martin 
Scott,  John  Rodgers,  John  Abbot,  Ann  Watson,  William  Hixson. 
Anthony  Woodward,  Thomas  Tindall,  Isaac  Watson,  Benjamin 
Maxle,  Joshua  Ely,  John  Lees,  John  Brearley,  Richard  Ridgway, 
Thomas  Green,  Samuel  Hunt,  Charles  Biles,  Thomas  Smith, 
Thomas  Coleman  and  John  Richardson. 

THE  OLD  ROADS  ACROSS  NEW  JERSEY. 

One  of  the  earliest  maps  we  have  of  the  vicinity  of  Trenton  is 
of  Mahlon  Stacy's  plantation,  the  survey  having  been  made  by 


THE    OLD    YORK    ROAD  663 

William  Emley,  Jr.,  in  1714.  The  plantation  at  the  ferry  which 
shows  the  old  road  is  called  on  this  map  "Ruth  Beaks  planta- 
tion." Ruth  Beakes  was  a  daughter  of  Mahlon  Stacy.  She  had 
married  first  William  Beakes  a  son  of  William  and  Mary  (Wain) 
Beakes,  who  on  November  26.  1707,  had  purchased  from  Mary 
(Emley)  Hayward,  daughter  of  William  Emley,  the  one  hun- 
dred acres  including  the  ferry  tract  which  had  been  left  to  her 
by  her  father,  William  Emley,  in  his  will  dated  April  25,  1704. 
The  elder  William  Beakes  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  member  of 
the  first  court  meeting  in  Bucks  county,  over  which  Governor 
Penn   presided. 

The  earliest  ferry  extended  from  Gilbert  \\'heeler's  land  on 
the  Pennsylvania  side  to  William  Emley's  land  on  the  West 
Jersey  shore.  Just  before  William  Penn  took  over  the  govern- 
ment of  Pennsylvania  the  court  at  Upland  had  laid  out  the  road 
from  Marcus  Hook  (below  Chester)  to  the  Falls  of  Delaware 
as  follows : 

Overseers  for  High  Waves  nominated  &  elected  at  the  Coi't  Alarch 
14  1681  ffor  one  yeare  next  ensueing;  for  the  repayring  of  the  High 
Wayes  within  their  respective  precincts  which  is  to  be  done  before  the 
last  day  of  Maye  next,  ut  sequitr. 

Wooley  Rawson  from  Marcus  Creek  to  Nanians  Creek. 

Robert  Wade  from  Namans  Creek  to  Upland  Creek. 

William  Oxley  from  Upland  Creek  to  Ammersland. 

Mons  Stawkett  from  Ammersland  to  Karkus  Mill. 

Peter  Yokeham  from  Karkus  Mill  to  Schorekill  ffalls. 

Andreas  Rambo  from  Shorekill  ffalls  to  Tawcony  Creek. 

Erick  Mulickay  from  Tawcony  Creek  to  Poquessink  Creek. 

Clause  Johnson  from  Poquessink  Creek  to  Samuel  Cliffs. 

John  Akraman  from  Samuel  Cliffs  to  Gilbert  Wheelers. 

This  road  was  one  of  the  ancient  highways  along  the  river 
through  the  state  of  Pennsylvania  on  the  route  to  New  York 
city.  Samuel  Cliff  lived  in  a  house  near  the  present  site  of 
Bristol.  Presentment  was  made  by  Thomas  Wynne  the  "Aturney 
Genrl"  at  the  grand  inquest  of  Philadelphia  County  to  the  first 
court  of  Pennsylvania  which  met  in  1683.  "that  the  Kings  road 
from  Scuilkill  through  the  City  of  Philadelphia  to  Neshameney 
Creek  may  be  marked  out  and  made  passable  for  horses  and 
carts  where  needful  and  that  the  county  of  Chester  may  join 
with  this  county  in  Scuilkill  ferry  and  that  the  county  of  Bucks 


664  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

in  the  ferry  over  Neshameney  and  that  the  places  of  the  ferries 
over  Scuilkill  and  Neshameney  may  be  ascertained." 

When  the  second  court  met,  there  was  presented  the  need  of 
a  "bridge  or  ferry  over  Takonie,  Peunebecca,  Poetquessin 
Neshamaney  and  in  general  over  the  whole  of  the  creeks  in  the 
Kings  road." 

Then  came  a  third  court  meeting  7th  1st  mo.  1683,  when  John 
Day  and  Thomas  Phillips,  overseers  of  the  city  highways,  were 
presented,  for  not  proceeding  with  their  duties,  and  Erick  Mulli- 
ker,  Walter  Forrest  and  Samuel  Allen,  overseers  of  the  county 
highways,  were  presented  for  not  beginning  to  build  a  bridge 
upon  Conaxen  creek  in  the  Kings  High  Road  according  to  the 
order  of  the  court.     (Penn  Mag.  Vol.  25,  p.  404.) 

That  road  along  the  river  was  the  earliest  post  road.  In  July, 
1683,  William  Penn  issued  an  order  for  the  establishment  of  a 
postoffice,  and  granted  to  Henry  Waldy  (Waddy  ?)  of  Tekonay 
authority  to  hold  one  and  "to  supply  passengers  with  horses  from 
Philadelphia  to  New  Castle  or  to  the  Falls."  The  rates  of  post- 
age were  to  wit :  Letters  from  the  Falls  to  Philadelphia — 3  d ;  to 
Chester — 5  d  ;  to  New  Castle — 7  d  ;  to  Maryland — 9  d ;  and  from 
Philadelphia  to  Chester — 2  d ;  to  New  Castle — 4  d ;  to  Maryland 
— 6  d."  This  post  went  once  each  week  and  was  carefully  pub- 
lished "on  the  meeting  house  door  and  other  public  places." 
(Watson's  Annals,  Pemberton  family  records.  Vol.  H,  p.  392.) 

On  the  New  Jersey  side,  the  upper  road,  or  the  road  from 
the  Falls,  crossed  the  Assunpink  toward  and  through  what  is 
now  Lawrenceville  and  Princetown,  reaching  the  Raritan  river 
at  what  is  now  New  Brunswick.  Here  John  Inians,  a  merchant 
of  New  York,  bought  Lot  No.  4,  August  6,  1683,  and  here  he 
established  a  ferry.  This  was  the  crossing  of  an  old  Indian  path 
and  nearby  was  an  Indian  burying-ground.  The  greater  part 
of  the  way  along  the  path  lay  within  the  jurisdiction  of  East 
Jersey,  as  the  partition  line  between  the  two  divisions  lay  only 
a  short  way  from  the  Falls.  At  a  council  held  in  Amboy,  the 
capitol  of  East  Jersey,  on  the  19th  of  April,  1686,  John  Inians 
presented  a  paper  in  which  he  set  forth  that  he  had  been  at  a 
considerable  expense  to  accommodate  the  country  in  making  a 
road  to  the  Falls  from  his  house  upon  the  Raritan,  "wch  is  six 
miles  shorter  than  formerly,  and  hath  f furnished  himself e  wth 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  665 

all  accomodac'on  as  boates  canoes  etc.  ffi-tting  for  fferrying  over 
the  Raraton  river  all  travelling  wth  horses  and  catle,  etc.  Desire- 
ing  this  Board  will  bee  pleased  to  order  its  being  a  publicke  road 
for  the  use  of  the  country,  and  setle  the  rates  for  the  f ferry  &c," 
which,  being  read,  it  was  agreed  and  ordered  that  the  commis- 
sioners appointed  by  Act  of  the  General  Assembly  for  the  laying 
out  of  all  highways,  landings,  and  ferries,  repair  to  the  ferry, 
inspect  the  same  and  make  their  report  to  the  Secretary's  Office ; 
and  as  to  the  fees,  rates  for  the  ferry,  the  same  must  be  settled 
bv  Act  of  the  General  x\ssembly  to  which  end  this  Board  will 
take  care  to  recommend  the  same  to  the  house  of  deputies. 
(Records  of  Gov.  and  Council — East  Jersey,  p.  132.) 

The  West  Jersey  proprietors,  having  their  capitol  at  Burling- 
ton, were  naturally  more  interested  in  developing  a  road  across 
the  provinces  from  this  point.  That  road  was  called  the  road  to 
Shrewsbury  where,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  census,  taken  by 
offi,cers  of  the  Dutch  fleet  in  1672,  a  number  of  Quakers  were 
settled  at  this  time  in  East  Jersey.  (W.  J.  Deed — Feb.  21,  1682 
— N.  J.  Archives,  Vol.  XXI,  p.  350.)  The  town  of  Perth 
Amboy  was  laid  out  by  Samuel  Groome  in  1683,  and  the  new 
Quaker  proprietaries  there  saw  more  profit  and  naturally  favored 
a  road  from  their  capitol  of  East  Jersey  at  Perth  Amboy  to  the 
capitol  of  West  Jersey  at  Burlington.  Gawen  Lawrie,  the 
deputy  governor  under  Robert  Barclay,  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
proprietaries  in  London,  dated  1st  mo.  2  da.  1684,  in  which  he 
stated  "I  am  setting  up  a  ferry  boat  at  Perth  (Amboy)  for  men 
and  horses  to  go  and  come  to  Burlington  and  Pennsylvania  and 
New  York.  Also  I  am  treating  with  one  to  set  up  a  house  mid- 
way to  Burlington  to  entertain  travellers,  and  a  ferry  boat  to  go 
to  New  York;  all  which  is  for  promoting  Perth  (Amboy),  that 
being  the  center." 

No  action  seems  to  have  been  taken  by  the  East  Jersey  pro- 
prietors in  the  matter  of  Inians  petition  to  make  his  road  to  the 
Falls  a  public  road.  This  was  not  in  the  route  of  Lawrie's  road. 
As  the  settlements  along  both  sides  of  the  Delaware  river  in- 
creased there  is  no  doubt,  though  offitial  action  may  have  been 
lacking,  that  many  travelers  sought  the  route  to  the  Falls  of 
Delaware.  We  find  William  Bradford,  the  printer,  when  on 
March  14,  1688,  he  gave  notice  of  his  proposal  to  print  a  Bible, 


666  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

announcing  that  subscriptions  therefore  were  to  be  received  at 
Phineas  Pemberton's  and  Robert  Halle  in  the  county  of  Bucks; 
at  Mahlon  Stacy's  mill;  at  the  Falls,  at  Thomas  Budd's  house 
in  Burlington ;  at  John  Hasting's  in  the  county  of  Chester ;  at 
Edward  Blake's  in  New  Castle;  at  Thomas  V.  Woodroof's  in 
Salem;  and  at  William  Bradford's  in  Philadelphia.  (Scharf  & 
Wescots  History  of  Phila.,  Vol.  I,  p.  222.) 

When  Andrew  Hamilton  became  governor  of  East  Jersey,  a 
new  interest  was  aroused  in  the  matter  of  roads.  In  the  year 
1692  he  was  appointed  Postmaster  General  of  America  under  a 
patent  which  made  the  mails  his  special  perquisite,  and,  on  July 
23,  1695,  he  and  eight  others,  the  highway  commissioners  of 
Middlesex  county,  East  Jersey,  gave  a  certificate  that  the  road 
between  John  Inians  and  Clas wicks  (Cross wicks  ?)  bridge  was 
well  cleared  and  the  best  road  to  Burlington  (N.  J.  Archives, 
Vol.  XXI,  p.  253.)  Then  at  a  council  held  at  Perth  Amboy. 
March  4,  1696,  Governor  Hamilton  presiding,  two  bills  were 
presented,  one  concerning  ordinaries  and  the  other  concerning  the 
highway  to  Burlington.  The  following  day  three  deputies,  John 
Browne,  Jedediah  Higgens  and  Richard  Salter,  brought  before 
the  council  the  bill  concerning  the  road  to  Burlington,  it  having 
been  rewritten  and  passed  both  houses.  In  Governor  Hamil- 
ton's time,  one  Dellman  operated  a  wagon  over  the  road  from 
Burlington  to  Amboy  under  no  regulation  as  to  the  time  of  go- 
ing or  of  the  price  of  carrying  the  goods.  Shortly  after  that, 
Feb.  5,  1698,  a  confirmation  was  given  to  John  Inians  and  his 
wife  Marie  for  their  lifetime  of  the  ferry  across  Raritan  river 
in  return  for  building  and  providing  boats  for  travelers  on  the 
great  road  from  Boosten  (sic)  to  the  west  to  Philadelphia;  with 
obligation  to  ferry  over  free  the  post  and  his  horse  and  public 
messengers.  (E.  J.  Deeds  Liber  F,  p.  543.)  They  received  this 
confirmation  just  in  time  for  John  died  the  following  year. 

The  English  settlements  in  A\'est  Jersey  began  1675  when 
Fenwick  settled  at  Salem.  The  settlement  at  Burlington  was 
made  1677  and  Penn  secured  his  patent  to  Pennsylvania  in  1682. 
When  in  the  year  1703,  the  governments  of  the  two  proprietary 
provinces  of  East  and  West  New  Jersey,  were  united  under  one 
government,   with  the   seat  of   government   of   an   uncertain   or 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  667 

shifting  character,  sometimes  at  Budington,  sometimes  at  Perth 
Amboy,  but  most  of  the  time  at  New  York,  a  new  impulse  for 
a  road  arose  at  least  from  the  Jerseys  to  New  York.  Lord  Corn- 
bury  granted  a  license  to  Hugh  Huddy  to  establish  a  stage  wagon 
from  Burlington  to  Perth  Amboy.  This  license,  dated  April  11, 
1706,  was  for  a  term  of  years  and  prohibited  others  from  under- 
taking a  stage  in  opposition.  The  colonists  complained  of  this 
patent  as  a  monopoly  "destructive  to  the  freedom  which  trade 
and  commerce  ought  to  have,"  and  the  quarrel  which  arose  over 
that  and  other  matters  between  Cornbury  and  the  New  jersey 
Assembly  ultimately  led  to  his  removal. 

There  was  at  that  time  a  ferry  from  Burlington  to  Philadel- 
phia. A  warrant  dated  December  11,  1704,  had  been  issued  to 
John  Reeves,  Henry  Tuckness,  Thomas  Biddle  and  William 
Bagley  for  a  ferry  which  saved  the  trip  over  the  bad  road  through 
Pennsylvania  (N.  J.  Liber  A. A. A.  Commissions,  pp.  27,  29.) 

The  road  from  Philadelphia  to  the  Falls  had  been  in  very  bad 
shape  for  the  use  of  cart  or  wagon.  The  Council  of  Pennsylvania 
took  due  note  of  its  condition  and  on  August  15,  1700,  passed  an 
order  in  council  which  was  duly  transmitted  to  the  respective 
counties  to  bring  to  the  notice  of  the  overseers,  courts,  justices, 
etc.    Thus  read  the  minute  : 

"Ordered  in  council  yt  the  King's  Highway  or  Publick  Road  &  the 
bridges  y^'^^  from  ye  town  of  Philadelphia  to  the  falls  of  Delaware  yt 
now  are,  be  wth  all  expedition  sufficientlie  cut  &  cleared  from  all  timber 
trees  &  stumps,  Loggs  &  from  all  other  nusances  whatsoever  yt  ye 
same  with  all  passages  in  &  out  of  all  creeks  &  Branches  may  be  made 
passable,  comodious,  safe  and  easie  for  man,  horse,  cart,  waggon  or 
team  be  y^  rescive  (respective)  overseers  of  Highways  and  Bridges 
wthin  their  rescive  precints,  townships  and  Counties  of  Philadelphia  & 
Bucks,  according  to  Law.  And  yt  ye  respective  Courts  of  Justice  & 
Justices  of  ye  peace  in  ye  sd  Counties  Cause  ye  same  be  dulie  pformed^ 
&  the  Laws  in  those  Cases  made  &  provided  be  strictlie  put  in  execuon 
undr  ye  rexive  yrin  contained  &  yt  ye  SeC'e  take  care  to  send  a  Copie 
of  this  ordr  to  ye  Counties  of  Philadelphia  &  Bucks  respectivele." 

That  the  road  was  avoided  as  much  as  possible  there  is  abun- 
dant evidence.  Merchandise  was  shipped  down  tthe  river  by 
boat,  and  passengers  too  preferred  this  route. 

By  the  year  1711  the  papers  in  Boston  were  beginning  to  pub- 
lish the  rates  of  letter  postage  from  New  York  to  Bridlington 
(Burlington).    An  abstract  of  an  act  of  the  assembly,  giving  the 


668 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 


rates  through  the  New  Jersey  jurisdiction  was  published  in  the 
Boston  Nezvs  Letter  Monday  Jan.  28,  Feb.  4,  1711 : 


Rate  for  letters,  packets,  etc.: 
From  New  York  to  Perth  Aniboy 
and   Bridlington  and  for  each 
of  those  places  to  New  York 
and  from  New  York  to  any  place 
not  exceeding  100  English  miles  and 
from   those   places   to   New  York. 

From  Perth  Amboy  &  Bridlington 
to  any  place  not  exceeding 
60  English  miles  and  thence 
back  again. 

From  Perth  Amboy  &  Bridlington 
to  any  place  not  exceeding 
100  English  miles  and  thence 
back  again. 


s  d 

Single          0  6 

Double        1  0 

Treble         1  6 

Ounce         2  0 


Single  .0  4 

Double  0  8 

Treble  1  0 

Ounce  1  4 

Single  0  6 

Double  1  0 

Treble  1  6 

Ounce  2  0 


THE  EARLY  FERRIES. 

Early  in  1717  the  New  Jersey  Assembly  passed  an  act  fixing 
the  rates  of  the  more  important  ferries,  then  in  operation  for 
carrying  passengers  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia  (Act 
of  January  26,  1716-17).  There  were  at  that  time  two  ferries 
from  the  Jersey  shore  to  New  York,  mentioned  in  that  act.  One 
from  Weehauken  and  one  from  Perth  Amboy,  the  capital  of 
East  Jersey.  Between  Weehauken  and  Perth  Amboy  was  a  long 
stretch  of  low  marshes  skirting  the  coast.  Travel  was  not  of 
great  proportions,  and  most  of  those  who  traveled  did  so  on 
horseback  and  furnished  their  own  horses.  There  was  a  ferry 
from  Perth  Amboy  to  Captain  Billop's  landing  on  Staten  Island, 
and  a  ferry  known  as  Redford's  ferry  across  the  mouth  of  Rari- 
tan  river  at  Perth  Amboy  (the  terminus  of  Lawrie's  road),  at 
all  of  which  places  the  rates  were  duly  fixed.  At  Inion's  ferry 
(now  New  Brunswick)  the  rate  fixed  for  a  horse  and  man  was 
four  pence,  and  for  a  single  person  two  pence.  No  mention 
being  made  of  the  charge  for  any  vehicle,  it  may  be  assumed  that 
in  those  days  there  was  not  much  travel  in  that  fashion.  Rates 
were  also  fixed  for  the  ferry  from  the  Falls  of  Delaware  to 
Burlington  and  from  Burlington  to  Philadelphia.     The  schedule 


THE    OLD   YORK    ROAD  669 

from   Burlington   to   Philadelphia   is   very   elaborate   and   would 
indicate  a  fairly  active  commerce  between  these  two  places. 

Below  are  the  rates  fixed  for  this  river  journey  of  some  twenty- 
five  miles  from  Burlington  to  Philadelphia,  a  distance  which  com- 
pared with  the  long  water  journey  from  the  foot  of  ^^'hitehall 
street,  New  York,  to  Perth  Amboy. 

"Hire  of  a  boat  in  Winter  for  a  single  passenger  from  Alichaelmas  to 
Lady  Day  S  shillings  and  9  pence. 

Single  passenger  in  Company,  one  shilling. 

In  summer  4  shillings  6  pence. 

Single  passenger  in  company  9  pence. 

Flour  per  ton  6  shillings  8  pence. 

Bread  per  ton  5  shillings  9  pence. 

Rum  per  hogshead  2  shillings  3  pence. 

Flour  per  ton  from  Farnsworth^  to  Phila  10  shillings. 

Wine  in  pipe,  3  shillings  9  pence. 

Everything  per  barrel  9  pence. 

Beef  per  quarter  7  pence  1/2  penny. 

Hogs,  Sheep  &c  per  head  7  pence  1/2  penny. 

Meal,  Salt  &c  per  bushel  2  pence." 

No  rates  are  established  for  a  ferry  from  Burlington  to  Bristol 
or  from  Gloucester  to  Philadelphia,  though  ferrys  had  been 
operating  from  these  points  under  Jersey  patents,  franchise  war- 
rants, or  licenses  for  sometime.  And  a  ferry  across  the  Delaware 
at  the  Falls  had  been  licensed  by  the  court  at  Upland  as  early 
as  1675. 

There  are  other  ferries  not  noticed  in  the  act  of  171~  which 
are  of  sufficient  importance  to  command  our  interest.  One  of 
them  is  the  ferry  to  Communipaw,  which  was  a  very  old  ferry 
established  in  1661,  during  the  time  of  the  Dutch.  That  ferry 
crossed  to  a  strip  of  land  known  as  Bergen  Point,  upon  which 
was  located  the  two  Dutch  settlements  of  Bergen  and  Communi- 
paw. The  ferryman  there  had  a  monopoly,  and  in  the  year  of 
1662  he  complained  that  the  authorities  of  Bergen  had  authorized 
the  inhabitants  to  "ferry  themselves  over  whenever  they  pleased." 
to  the  detriment  of  his  privilege.  (Albany  Records  XIV,  p.  27; 
XIX,  p.  28,  36,  437;  XXIV,  p.  398.)  That  ferry  was  placed 
under  due  regulation  by  Governor  Carteret  in  1669.  Rates  were 
established  "for  the  transportation  of   Corn,  Barrels,   and  Half 

G  Farnsworth's  landing,  mentioned  in  the  rates,  wa.s  later  sold  to  Joseph 
Borden  in  1735  and  became  the  site  of  Bordentown. 


670  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

Barrels  of  Beer,  other  goods  and  liquors  in  Casks,  Horses,  Oxen. 
Cows,  Hogs,  Sheep  as  well  as  passengers  in  fair  weather.  And 
"by  night  or  in  unseasonable  weather,"  the  rates  were  as  the 
parties  might  agree.  The  ferryman  was  obliged  to  keep  his  boat  in 
readiness  at  all  times,  but  more  particularly  upon  three  days  in 
the  week  to  be  agreed  upon  unanimously  by  the  inhabitants  of 
Bergen  and  Communipaw,  when  he  was  obliged  to  attend 
punctually. 

On  June  21,  1669,  Pieter  Hetfelsen  received  a  license  to 
operate  the  ferry  between  New  York  and  Communipaw,  he  hav- 
ing been  elected  to  that  position  by  the  people  of  Bergen  and 
Communipaw.  On  March  10,  1670,  ,Hendrick  Cornelissen  ob- 
tained a  license  to  keep  an  ordinary  at  Bergen.  But  this  feri-y 
was  not  a  general  utility  to  the  other  towns.  Between  these 
settlements  and  Elizabethtown  lay  a  body  of  water  known  to  the 
Dutch  as  Atcher  Cull,  or  Back  Bay,  later  called  Arthur  KuU,  now 
called  Newark  Bay.  And  between  the  upper  part  of  the  Ber- 
gen peninsula  and  Newark,  lay  a  long  stretch  of  low  marsh  land 
and  two  streams  the  Hackensack  and  Passiac  rivers. 

On  March  2,  1684,  Governor  Lawrie  wrote  to  the  proprietors 
of  East  Jersey  in  London,  telling  them  of  the  two  ferries  he  was 
establishing,  one  from  South  Amboy  to  Perth  Amboy,  and  the 
one  from  Perth  Amboy  to  New  York,  and  of  the  building  of  a 
road  to  Burlington.  All  for  the  promoting  of  Perth  Amboy. 
Thus  did  the  East  Jersey  proprietors  seek  to  develop  Perth  Am- 
boy as  the  ferrytown  to  New  York.  The  Lawrie  road  to  Burling- 
ton did  not  go  near  Inions  ferry,  but  crossed  the  Raritan  directly 
to  what  is  now  South  Amboy  at  Redford's  ferry  previously  men- 
tioned, the  route  crossing  the  South  river  towards  Spotteswoode. 
In  spite  of  efforts  to  make  that  the  public  road  there  was  a 
strong  tendency  to  use  the  old  path,  which  crossed  the  Raritan  at 
Inions  ferry,  and  thence  to  Piscataway,  to  Woodbridge,  fording 
the  Rahawick  (Rahway  river),  thence  to  Elizabeth  Point, whence 
a  ferry  would  transport  the  traveler  about  Bergen  Point  to 
New  York. 

When  Danker  and  Sluyter  crossed  from  New  York  in  1679, 
they  record  that  the  tavern  and  ferry  at  Elizabethtown  were 
kept  by  a  French  papist.  These  towns  and  outbounds  were 
slowly  increasing  in  population.     The  census  taken  in  1673  by 


THE    OLD   YORK    ROAD  671 

the  Dutch  Admiral  showed.  Elizabethtown  had  80  men,  New- 
ark 86,  Woodbridge  65,  and  Piscataway  43.  That  did  not  repre- 
sent the  population,  but  only  the  men  who  were  called  upon  to 
take  the  oath.  George  Scott  of  Pitlochie,  estimates  the  population 
in  1685  as  Piscataway  about  400,  Woodbridge  600,  Elizabeth- 
town  700,  Newark  500. 

The  first  measures  for  laying  out  a  highway  seem  to  have 
been  taken  in  November  1675,  as  it  was  enacted  at  that  time 
that  two  men  from  each  town  should  be  appointed  to  lay  out 
the  common  highway. 

In  1688  each  town  was  obliged  by  law  to  keep  an  ordinary 
for  the  relief  and  entertainment  of  strangers  under  a  penalty  of 
forty  shillings  for  each  month's  neglect  and  none  but  ordinary 
keepers  were  permitted  to  retail  liquors  in  less  quantity  than 
two  gallons.  And  then  in  1695,  a  tax  for  five  years  was  laid 
upon  the  innholders  along  the  route  of  the  old  path  through 
Piscataway,  Woodbridge,  and  Elizabethtown,  to  prevent  the  road 
"'falling  into  decay."  The  amount  required  for  upkeep  was  £10 
annually,  of  which  amount  £3  was  paid  by  the  innholders  of 
Piscataway,  50  shillings  by  those  of  Woodbridge  and  the  balance 
by  those  of  Elizabethtown.  The  road  to  Amboy  became  a  popu- 
lar route  of  travel,  but  not  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  the  old  route. 
In  1684  a  road  was  laid  out  from  Piscataway  to  Perth  Amboy 
making  it  possible  to  use  the  path  from  the  Falls  of  Delaware 
to  reach  Amboy.  In  1693  the  proprietors  directed  Governor 
Basse  to  procure  from  the  assembly  a  specific  act  making  Lawrie's 
road  the  public  road,  and  providing  for  its  good  condition,  but 
uo  such  endorsement  was  secured.  This  attitude  probably  helped 
to  delay  for  a  long  time  the  license  for  Inions  ferry.  The  fol- 
lowing is  a  list  of  some  of  the  early  ferries  licensed  in  New 
Jersey  a  record  of  which  is  still  preserved: 

1687,   March   1.     Grant  of  a  ferry  from  Glovicester  to  William  Ro\'don. 

1698,  Feb.  5.  Grant  from  E.  Jersey  See.  to  John  and  Mary  Inians, 
Middlesex  Co. 

1704,  Dec.  11.  Burlington  to  Philadelphia,  Warrant  to  Henry  Tuck- 
ness,  John  Reeves,  Thomas  Biddle  and  William  Baglej^ 

1704,  Dec.  11.  Burlington  to  Bristol.  Warrant  for  ferry  to  Christo- 
pher  Snowden. 

1707.  Aug.    22.     Gloucester  ferry  franchise  granted  to  John  Spey. 

1710,  Jan.        6.     Gloucester  ferry  license  to  Dorothea  Medcalf. 


672  THE   OLD   VOKK    ROAD 

1721,  April   22.     Burlington     to     Bristol     Patent     granted     to     Thomas 

Hunloke. 

1722,  Nov.    26.     Gloucester  ferry  license  granted  to  Joseph  Hugg. 
1726,  April   30.     Amwell, Hunterdon  Co.  to  Pennsylvania  license  granted 

to  John   Coate. 
1733,  Jan.        7.     Amwell,   Hunterdon   Co.   to   Penna.    Grant   for   a   ferry 

to  Emanuel  Coryell. 
1733,  July     30.     Gloucester  to  Philadelphia,  license  for  ferry  granted  to 

Richard  Weldon. 
1739,  Jan.      21.     Gloucester  ferry.     Patent  issued  to  William  Cooper. 

The  road  from  Trenton  to  Perth  Amboy  early  became  a  popu- 
lar route.  About  the  year  1745,  John  Dalley  of  Kingston,  N.  J., 
made  a  survey  of  the  old  road  and  set  down  markers  each  two 
miles,  and  published  two  maps,  one  dedicated  to  James  Alexander, 
and  the  other  to  Chief  Justice  Robert  Hunter  Morris.  Originals 
of  these  maps  are  located  in  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 
They  are  excellent  in  showing  the  location  of  the  old  houses  and 
taverns  along  the  route  and  the  roads  coming  into  it.  The  fol- 
lowing advertisement  appeared  in  the  Pennsylvania  Gaacttc  of 
September  12,  1745 : 

"Whereas  John  Dally  of  Kingston,  in  New  Jersey,  Surveyor,  hath 
made  an  actual  Survey  of  the  Road  from  Trenton  to  Amboy,  with  the 
River  from  Amboy  to  Brunswick  Landing;  and  hath  set  up  proper  and 
durable  Marks  at  every  two  Miles  Distance,  and  at  all  publick  Roads 
turning  out,  that  Gentlemen  and  Travellers  may  know  the  Distance 
from  Place  to  Place,  and  whither  the  Roads  lead;  which  has  been  done 
by  Subscription,  tho"  far  short  of  a  Sufficient  to  defray  the  Charge 
thereof;  and  is  now  inclined  to  continue  the  same  to  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  and  to  make  and  print  a  map  of  the  whole,  if  he  can  meet 
with  suitable  Encouragement.  This  is  therefore  to  propose  to  the  pub- 
lick  a  Subscription  for  that  Purpose  which  if  a  sufficient  Number  of 
Subscribers  appears  to  defray  the  Expense,  and  make  up  the  aforesaid 
Deficiency  by  the  iSth  of  October  next,  shall  be  immediately  begun, 
and  completed  as  soon  as  possible.  The  Terms  are,  that  besides  putting 
up  the  Marks  aforesaid,  a  Map  shall  be  printed,  on  large  and  good 
Paper,  of  the  whole  Road  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York,  in  which 
shall  be  noted  every  remarkable  Place  or  Object,  as  Houses,  Brooks, 
Creeks,  Bridges,  &c.  &c.  with  their  Names.  That  every  Subscriber 
paying  Five  Shillings,  one  Half  at  Subscribing,  and  the  other  Half  at 
the  Delivery  of  the  Map,  shall  have  one  of  them;  and  that  the  Subscrib- 
ers Names  shall  be  printed  in  the  Corners  of  the  Map.  Subscriptions 
are  taken  in  by  A.  Reed,  in  Trenton,  James  Leonard,  in  King's-Town, 
Paul  Miller  in  Brunswick,  James  Parker  in  New  York  and  B.  Franklin 
in   Philadelphia." 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  673 

About  that  time  a  road  map  of  the  British  colonies  was  pub- 
Hshed  by  Lewis  Evans,  in  accordance  with  an  act  of  parHament 
of  1747,  which  shows  the  old  roads  out  of  Philadelphia,  both  by 
way  of  the  Bristol  road  and  the  Old  York  road.  The  distances 
given  on  that  map  over  the  former  route  from  Philadelphia,  is  as 
follows : 

To  Bristol  20  miles,  to  Trenton  30  miles,  to  Brunswick  59 
miles,  to  Amboy  68  miles,  to  Elizabethtown  79  miles,  and  to 
New  York  96  miles.  The  Old  York  road  he  carries  only  so  far 
as  the  North  Branch  of  Raritan  river,  and  does  not  show  the  old 
road  up  the  Raritan  laid  out  in  1684.  This  map  shows  the  town 
of  Hatboro  on  the  Old  York  road,  which  is  the  earliest  reference 
I  have  found  to  this  name.  Lewis  Evans  credits  Nicholas  Scull 
with  some  of  the  information  he  obtained  with  reference  to 
Pennsylvania,  and  Nicholas  Scull's  map,  published  in  1759,  is  one 
of  the  most  interesting  road  maps  of  this  early  period.  Two  years 
before  his  map  was  published  Bradford,  the  printer,  produced  a 
book  entitled  "Book  of  Distances  Within  the  Improved  Part  of 
Pennsylvania."  An  original  copy  of  which  is  in  the  Ridgeway 
Library  of  Philadelphia. 

The  following  are  the  distances  given  in  that  little  book  over 
the  road  to  Trenton,  and  over  the  Old  York  road  to  Wells  ferry : 

Road  from   Philadelphia  Court  House  to  Trenton. 

Ms.      Qrs.   Prs. 

To  Pools  Bridge 0 

To  Frackford    Bridge 4 

To  the  Widow   Mc   Veaghs 5 

To  Oxford    Road 5 

To  the  Sign  of  the  Star 7 

To  John    Halls 7 

To  Pennypack  Bridge 9 

To  Widow  Amos  (Red  Lion  Inn) 12 

To  Neshaminy    Ferry 17 

To  Bristol 20 

To  the  Widow   Martins    (Tullytown) 24 

To  Pennsbury   Road 26 

To  Trenton    Ferry 30 


2 

65 

3 

56 

3 

10 

3 

54 

2 

55 

3 

46 

3 

36 

3 

00 

0 

19 

1 

49 

0 

30 

0 

70 

2 

38 

674  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

ROAD  FROM    PHILADELPHIA   COURT   HOUSE  TO   WELLS   FERRY. 
Road  from  Philadelphia  Court  House  to  Wells  Ferry. 

Ms.  Qrs.  Prs. 

To  Pools    Bridge 0  2  65 

To  Armitages    (Milestown) 7  2  8 

To  Jenkins  (Jenkintown) 10  1  60 

To  the  Billet   (Hatboro) 16  0  0 

To  Bristol  Road    (Hartsville) 19  2  58 

To  S.  West  br.  of  Neshaminy  Creek 20  0  46 

To  Neshaminy    Creek    (Bridge    Valley)       ....          23  2  24 

To  Watsons    (Bushington) 25  2  24 

To  New  Town  Road  (Buckingham) 26  3  24 

To  Buckingham    Meeting   House 28  1  69 

To  Wells  Ferry  (New  Hope) 33  1  19 

THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD   THROUGH    PENNSYLVANIA. 

Early  in  the  year  1711,  at  a  meeting  of  the  council  of  the 
Province  of  Pennsylvania,  a  petition  was  read  praying  for  a  road 
to  begin  at  John  Reading's  landing  in  Amwell,  New  Jersey,  and 
to  extend  from  that  point  direct  to  Philadelphia.  Reading's 
landing  was  located  about  nineteen  miles  above  the  Falls  of  the 
Delaware,  but  owing  to  the  course  taken  by  the  river  the  distance 
from  Philadelphia  in  a  direct  line  was  not  much  longer  than  the 
distance  from  Philadelphia  to  the  Falls.  There  was  no  Trenton 
in  those  days  and  a  survey  of  the  plantation  of  Mahlon  Stacy 
made  by  William  Emley,  Jr.,  in  1714,  with  an  excellent  map, 
showing  the  limited  habitations  there,  is  deposited  with  Basses 
Surveys,  p.  85,  (Sec.  State,  N.  J.).  One  of  the  promoters  of 
that  road  was  a  Jerseyman,  John  Reading,  a  member  of  the 
council  of  West  New  Jersey,  proprietors.  The  Lotting  purchase 
of  the  West  Jersey  Society  of  June  20,  1708,  had  extended  the 
bounds  of  West  Jersey  territory  to  a  point  a  little  above  Reading's 
Landing  at  the  present  site  of  Stockton,  and  the  same  year  the 
township  of  Amwell  was  set  ofif  from  Burlington  county.  Mat- 
ters Avere  getting  into  shape  for  a  further  sub-division  by  the 
purchase  of  the  West  Jersey  Societies  Great  Tract,  the  survey 
for  which  was  returned  by  Daniel  Leeds  in  June,  1711.  The  in- 
fluence of  John  Reading  at  that  time  was  at  its  height.  His 
name  was  soon  to  be  under  consideration  for  appointment  to  the 
governors'  council. 

On  the  Pennsylvania  side  a  steady  increase  of  population  was 


THE    OLD   YORK    ROAD  675 

Avorking  its  way  into  the  woods  back  from  the  river.  There  was 
a  road  laid  out  in  1705  from  the  house  of  William  Cooper  in 
Buckingham  township  to  the  Delaware  river  at  Bristol.  And  that 
road  crossed  the  path  leading  to  Solebury,  later  to  be  the  Old 
York  road.  Along  that  path  doubtless  many  of  the  inhabitants 
made  their  way,  and  it  probably  continued  toward  Round  Meadow 
(now  Willow  Grove),  where  some  Welsh  and  English  families 
had  by  that  date  settled.  The  Welsh  road,  so  called,  had  been 
laid  out  to  North  Wales  in  1702,  so  that  the  time  was  ripe  in 
Pennsylvania  as  well  as  in  New  Jersey  to  consider  a  new  route 
to  New  York. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  council  held  in  Philadelphia  January  27, 
1711. 

"A  petition  of  several  of  the  inhabitants  &  freeholders  of  the  town- 
ships of  Buckingham  and  Solebury  was  read  praying  that  a  convenient 
road  may  be  laid  out  and  Established  from  those  upper  parts  to  Phila- 
delphia according  to  the  courses  and  manner  following,  vizt. :  To  be- 
gin at  the  side  of  the  river  Delaware  opposite  to  John  Reading's  land- 
ing from  thence  the  most  direct  and  convenient  course  to  Buckingham 
Meeting  house  &  from  thence  the  most  direct  and  convenient  course 
through  the  land  of  Thomas  Watson  on  the  north  side,  And  from 
thence  the  most  direct  and  convenient  course  to  Stephen  Jenkins  on 
the  w^est  side  of  his  house,  and  from  thence  the  most  direct  and  con- 
venient course  to  the  house  of  Richard  Walln  now  in  possession  of 
George  Shoemaker,  And  so  forward  the  most  direct  and  convenient 
courses  to  Philadelphia,  which  said  Petition  being  signed  by  a  great 
many  of  the  inhabitants;  and  the  said  road  promising,  as  intended  to  be 
laid  out,  to  be  of  great  use  and  service  to  the  Public.  It  is  therefore 
granted  by  the  Board,  and  it  is  Ordered  (as  desired)  that  Thomas  Wat- 
son, Jno.  Scarborough,  Jacob  Holcomb,  Nathaniel  Bye,  Matthew 
Hughes,  Joseph  Fell,  Samuel  Cart,  Stephen  Jenkins,  Thomas  Halli- 
well,  Griff.  Miles,  Job  Goodson  &  Isaac  Norris  or  some  six  of  them 
do  lay  out  the  same  Road  and  make  their  return  of  the  courses  within 
6  months  from  this  day."      (Penna   Colonial  Records,   Vol.   II,  p.   542.) 

The  jury  appointed  to  lay  out  the  road  consisted  of  twelve  men, 
six  of  whom  Avere  residents  of  Buckingham  and  Solebury  and  six 
of  Abington,  Philadelphia,  or  old  Bristol  townships.  In  due  time 
they  made  their  report  of  the  survey. 

The  road  began  at  the  Delaware  river  opposite  to  John  Read- 
ing's landing  on  the  five  hundred  acre  tract  of  Barsilian  Foster 
to  whom  it  had  been  surveyed  in  1696,  thence  across  a  corner 
of  the  lands  of   George   Pownal  through  the  lands  of   Randall 


676  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

Spikeman,  which  later  came  into  possession  of  Samuel  Eastburn. 
Thence  along  the  northwest  border  of  the  lands  that  John  Scar- 
borough had  purchased  from  Jacob  Holcomb  in  1709,  thence 
through  the  lands  surveyed  to  James  Pellar  in  1689,  to  the  Buck- 
ingham Meeting  House  built  upon  land  given  by  James  Streator 
in  1705.  From  the  Streator  tract  the  road  passed  along  the 
boundary  between  Joseph  Large  and  Richard  Lundy,  the  south- 
west part  of  the  Lundy  tract  being  in  possession  of  Matthew 
Hughes  one  of  the  commissioners  for  laying  out  the  road.  Thence 
along  the  boundary  between  the  lands  of  Uriah  Hughes  and 
Elizabeth  Archibald  on  the  northwest  and  the  Francis  Rossel 
tract  on  the  southwest,  the  latter  tract  then  in  possession  of 
Thomas  Watson,  Sr.,  another  of  the  commissioners  for  laying  out 
the  road.  The  house  of  Thomas  Watson  is  the  last  land  mentioned 
in  the  petition  until  the  road  reaches  the  house  of  Stephen 
Jenkins.  From  the  swamp  road  which  marks  the  end  of  the 
Watson  tract  the  road  crossed  diagonally  the  large  Mayleigh 
tract  of  1622  acres,  which  extended  almost  to  the  main  branch 
of  the  Neshaminy  which  flowed  through  the  lands  which  had 
come  into  possession  of  John  Rodman  in  1703.  This  was  a  large 
tract  now  in  Warwick  township  containing  3325  acres.  Thence 
the  road  crossed  the  corner  of  the  Benjamin  Furley  tract  through 
lands  which  came  into  possession  of  Henry  Jamison  in  1728. 
This  Furley  tract  being  the  outlying  tract  shown  on  Thomas 
Holme's  map  of  1687.  Then  the  road  continued  across  the 
land  of  James  Boyden,  where  it  crossed  the  west  branch  of  the 
Neshaminy  and  into  Warminster  township.  There  it  passed 
through  several  tracts  one  of  which  came  into  possession  of 
Martha  Todd  in  1726.  Thence  across  the  lands  of  Able  Noble 
(son  of  William  Noble)  into  what  is  now  Montgomery  county. 
That  land  fell  into  possession  of  Abie's  children,  one  of  whom 
was  Job  Noble,  the  blacksmith  to  whom  John  Wells  left  a  legacy 
of  £50.  His  lands  lay  on  both  sides  of  the  York  road,  next  to 
the  county  line.  From  Able  Noble's  land,  the  course  of  the  road 
can  be  traced  on  Thomas  Holme's  map  of  1687.  The  lands  of 
Henry  English  adjoin  on  the  northwest  the  lands  of  Able  Noble, 
and  in  our  course  toward  Philadedlphia  the  road  passed 
through  the  large  tract  of  Samuel  Carpenter,  through  a 
part  of  the  Manor  of  Moorland  where  Hatboro  is  now  located 


THE   OLD    YORK    ROAD  677 

into  the  tract  of  Samuel  Clarridge,  who  later  sold  to  Thomas 
Holme,  and  whose  executors  sold  a  large  part  of  it  to  John  Hallo- 
well.  Further  on  we  note  the  tract  of  Josh.  Cart,  John  Barnes 
(who  gave  the  land  for  Abington  Meeting),  Richard  Walln,  Toby 
Leech  and  others. 

From  the  habitations  that  clustered  about  the  crossing  of  the 
road  from  Bristol  to  the  house  of  William  Cooper,  the  road 
seemed  to  pass  through  many  miles  of  a  wilderness  until  it  ap- 
proached the  crossing  of  the  Welsh  road,  which  road  was  laid 
out  in  1702  from  Gwynedd  to  the  mills  on  Pemapack.  And  in 
1704  a  road  had  been  petitioned  for  by  the  inhabitants  of  North 
Wales,  which  cartway  was  to  extend  from  Philadelphia  to  North 
Wales  passing  through  Germantown.  That  was  the  beginning  of 
the  Germantown  road.  And  into  this  latter  road  at  what  was 
called  Rising  Sun  the  petitioners  had  planned  to  join  their  road. 

In  the  year  1711,  a  petition  signed  by  sixty  persons  prayed  that 
Welch  road  be  reviewed,  and  a  committee  consisting  of  Thomas 
Kinderdine,  Robert  Jones.  John  Cadawalader,  Rowland  Hugh, 
Owen  Evans  and  Thomas  Canby.  was  duly  appointed,  and  made 
their  report  the  following  year.  Until  the  neighborhood  of  that 
road  is  reached  little  is  said  of  the  habitations  and  then  the 
courses  reach  the  house  of  Stephen  Jenkins.  William  Jenkins 
the  father  of  Stephen  Jenkins,  had  purchased  from  John  Barnes 
a  tract  of  four  hundred  and  thirty-seven  acres.  June  16,  1698. 
William  Jenkins  died  in  1712,  his  will  dated  11th  of  12  mo.. 
1711,  was  proved  August  16,  1712.  In  it  he  bequeathed  his 
dwelling  house  and  plantation  to  his  wife  Elizabeth.  He  had  two 
children,  a  son  Stephen  and  a  daughter  Margaret.  Stephen  mar- 
ried Abigail  the  eldest  daughter  of  Phineas  Pemberton  of  Falls 
township,  Bucks  county.  14th  2  mo..  1704.  He  resided  on  prop- 
erty half-a-mile  north  of  Jenkinstown.  near  Noble  station.  His 
buildings  burned  down  in  1717.  and  the  Abington  Meeting  raised 
a  subscription  to  help  supply  the  faiiiily  with  corn  through  the 
emergency. 

The  next  house  mentioned  in  the  report  of  the  committee  was 
the  house  of  Richard  Walln  then  in  possession  of  George  Shoe- 
maker. Richard  Walln  was  one  of  the  original  purchasers  from 
W^illiam  Penn,  and  his  name  will  be  found  on  Holme's  map  along 
the  line  intended  by  Holme  to  be  the  course  of   Susquehannah 


678  THE   OLD    YORK    ROAD 

road.  Richard  Walln  had  married  Anne  Heath,  a  daughter  of 
Robert  Heath.  And  Sarah,  a  sister  of  Richard  WaUn,  mar- 
ried George  Shoemaker  14  12  mo.  1694,  who  had  embarked  for 
America  in  the  ship  "Jeffries,"  arriving  in  Philadelphia  with  three 
brothers  and  three  sisters.  His  father  died  on  the  voyage  over. 
He  was  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  a  young  man  aged  23  years. 
The  house,  located  in  Shoemakertown  or  O'gontz,  as  it  is  now 
called,  was  frequently  used  as  a  meeting  place  for  Friends  of 
Abington  and  vicinity,  before  the  meeting-house  was  built,  and 
from  that  point  the  road  was  carried  to  the  end  of  Fourth  Street, 
in  Philadelphia.  Both  ends  of  the  road  as  surveyed  were  shifted. 
Before  1719  the  road  ceased  to  run  to  Reading's  Landing,  and 
shifted  to  a  crossing  some  three  and  a  half  miles  below,  while  the 
route  at  the  Philadelphia  end  had  to  be  reviewed  several  times 
before  it  was  satisfactory. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  council  in  Philadelphia  November  3,  1711 : 

"Whereas  by  an  order  of  the  Council  of  the  27th  of  January  last, 
grounded  upon  a  petition  for  laying  out  a  road  from  River  Delaware 
opposite  John  Reading's  landing  to  Philadelphia  the  persons  to  Lay 
out  the  same  made  return  which  return  was  objected  against  &  a 
petition  exhibited  that  there  might  be  a  review  granted. 

It  is  therefore  ordered  that  some  six  of  the  persons  first  appointed  to 
lay  out  the  said  road  together  with  Samuel  Richardson,  Thomas  God- 
frey, Geo.  Shoemaker,  Henry  Bennet.  Isaac  Knight,  Peter  Chamberlain, 
Daniel  Thomas  &  Toby  Leech  or  some  four  of  them  make  alternations 
therein  as  may  be  thought  most  convenient,  and  make  their  return  into 
the  Secretaries  Office  ye  24th  inst.  in  order  to  be  confirmed."  (Penna. 
Colonial  Records,  Vol.  II,  p.  563.) 

Within  the  three  weeks  limit  set  by  the  council  a  review  was 
made  duly  signed,  and  sent  to  the  council  at  Philadelphia. 

The  road  from  the  river  Delaware  opposite  to  John  Reading's 
landing  to  Philadelphia  being  reviewed  and  returned : 

"Beginning  at  the  side  of  the  River  Delaware  in  The  County  of  Bucks 
opposite  to  John  Reading's  Landing  &  running  from  thence  South 
West  thirty  perches,  thence  South  thirty  five  degrees  west  sixteen 
perches,  thence  South  ten  degrees  west  thirty  four  perches,  thence 
South  So.  West  one  hundred  and  seventy  perches,  thence  So.  Eighteen 
degrees  W.  forty  perches,  then  S.W.  eighty  perches,  thence  S.  fifteen 
degrees  W.  forty  perches,  thence  S.W.  two  hundred  &  fifty  four  perches 
thence  So.  Twenty  D.,  W.  seventy  perches  thence  S.W.  640  perches  to 
Buckingham  Meeting  House,  etc.  etc.  etc." 

(The  land  of  Thomas  Watson,  Stephen  Jenkins,  and  the  house  of  Rd 


THE    OLD    ^ORK    KOAD  679 

Walln   now   in   possession   of   Geo.    Shoemaker   are    mentioned   and   the 
courses  given  to  the  end  of  4th  St.  from  Phila.) 
Witness  our  hands  this  24th  of  Nov.  1711. 

Toby  Leach  John    Scarborough 

Peter  Chamberlin  Thomas  Watson 

Geo.  Shoemaker  Stephen   Jenkins 

Isaac  Knight  Nathaniel   Bye 

Henrv   Bennet  Matthew  Hughes 

Griffith  Miles. 
(Penn  Colonial  Records  Vol.  II,  p.  566.) 

Again  complaint  was  made,  and  the  following  year  at  a  meet- 
ing of  the  council  held  October  16,  1712,  a  petition  of  some  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Philadelphia  county  was  read  and  the  follow- 
ing resolution  for  a  further  review  was  adopted : 

"Whereas,  divers  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  City  and  County  of  Phila- 
delphia by  their  Peticon  now  Exhibited  &  Read  pray  an  alteration  of 
a  new  Road  lately  laid  out  from  The  River  Delaware  in  Ye  County  of 
Bucks  opposite  to  John  Reading's  landing  To  Philadelphia  that  in  Lieu 
thereof  the  Road  formerly  laid  out  from  Nath'll  Pools  to  William 
Coates  Corner,  and  so  over  the  Govr's  Mill  Creek  to  ye  said  mill  land- 
ing place  &  from  thence  in  a  direct  Course  to  the  end  of  ye  lane  be- 
tween ye  lands  of  Isaac  Norris  &  Job  Goodson  may  be  made  the  Pub- 
lic Road  from  this  City  to  joyn  ye  said  new  Road  at  the  Lane  afore- 
said. It  is  therefore  Ordered  that  Rich^  Hill,  Jonathan  Dickinson, 
Thomas  Masters  &  Job  Goodson,  Richard  Walne  &  William  Coates  or 
some  four  of  them  do  lay  out  the  same  accordingly;  and  at  the  same 
time  they  view  the  Land  of  Hans  Neys  who  Complains  of  great  Damage 
done  him  by  The  Courses  of  said  Road  &  give  him  such  relief  as  may 
be  reasonable." 

Here  Hans  Neys  or  Nice  is  also  asking  for  relief.  Hans  con- 
tributed the  name  Nicetown  to  a  northern  section  of  Philadelphia. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  council  January  14,  1712.  report  was  duly 
made  by  four  persons,  which  carried  the  road  over  courses  which 
maps  made  during  Revolutionary  time  showed  then  to  still 
pertain.  There  was  also  read  the  return  made  by  four  of  the 
six  persons  appointed  at  the  last  council  for  altering  the  new 
road  laid  out  from  Delaware  in  Bucks  county,  opposite  to  John 
Reading's  landing  to  Philadelphia,  so  far  as  between  the  end  of 
the  front  street  of  Philadelphia  to  the  lane  between  I.  Norris 
and  Job  Goodsons  plantations  in  these  words : 

"In  pursuance  of  the  order  the  Gov'r  &  Council  We  the  persons  there- 
in nominated  have  laid  out  the  Road  thereby  Directed  Beginning  at 
the  North  side  of  Vine  St  in  the  middle  of  the  front  street  of  the  City 


680  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

of  Philadelphia  and  Delaware  side  and  thence  proceeding  by  the  sev- 
eral Courses  and  Distances  therein  after  following  vizt: — North  Twenty 
two  Degrees,  Easterly  fifty  six  perches  to  Danll  Peggs  porch;  North 
Twenty  one  Deg.  Easterly  sixty-one  perches  N.  one  deg.  W.  sixty  six 
perches  N.  two  Deg.  W.  sixteen  perches  over  the  marsh  &  mill  Creek; 
N  Twenty  two  Deg  W.  thirty  perches  N.  fifteen  Deg.  and  an  half  W. 
thirty  perches  N.  Eighteen  Deg  and  an  half  W.  forty  four  perches  N. 
four  Deg.  W.  Sixty  perches,  North  one  Deg.  East  forty  perches  N. 
Eight  Deg.  East  Eighty  perches  N.  fourteen  Deg.  &  an  half  W.  twenty 
nine  perches  N.  four  Deg.  W.  sixteen  perches  N.  two  Deg.  E.  Eighty 
perches  to  the  land  between  Isaac  Norris  &  Job  Goodson  the  place 
to  which  we  are  ordered  to  carry  the  said  Road. 

In  Witness  Whereof  we  have  hereunto  sett  our  hands  &  Seals  the 
Seventh  day  of  January  in  the  Eleven  Year  of  Queen  Ann  Annoy 
Domini    1712. 

Richard  Hill  Thomas   Masters 

Jonathan  Dickinson  Job    Goodson." 

The  course  of  the  road  up  to  perhaps  the  time  of  the  death  of 
John  Reading  in  1717  was  directed  to  opposite  Reading's  land- 
ing at  what  is  now  Center  Bridge,  Pa.  But  that  route  was  not 
used  to  any  extent  longer  than  the  first  years.  Certainly  by  this 
latter  date  John  Wells  began  the  operation  of  a  ferry  opposite 
to  what  is  now  Lambertville  and  applied  for  a  license.  About 
thirteen  years  later  the  inhabitants  submitted  petitions  praying 
that  the  road  to  Wells  ferry  be  established  as  the  official  road, 
that  the  township  might  be  freed  the  expense  of  upkeep  for  the 
upper  road,  then  declared  useless  and  overgrown. 

Solebury  ye   15th  of  3  mo  1730. 
To  the  Governor  and  Council  in  Philadelphia  Sitting 
The   Humble  petition  of  John   Scarborough  John   Dawson   Benjamin 
Canby   and   divers   of    the   Upper    inhabitants     on     Delaware     Humbly 
Sheweth 

Whereas  there  was  formerly  a  road  laid  out  by  order  of  the  Gov- 
ernor &  Council  from  the  river  side  against  John  Reading's  Landing 
along  by  Buckingham  Meeting  house  down  to  Philadelphia  on  promise 
of  the  Inhabitants  of  West  Jersey  laying  out  a  Road  on  the  other  side 
to  accommodate  it  for  a  road  to  New  York  it  being  proposed  to  be  the 
nearest  way.  Instead  of  so  doing  they  laid  their  road  down  to  the 
landing  against  John  Wells  ferry  and  on  that  foot  was  an  order  of  our 
Court  granted  for  a  road  to  be  laid  out  from  Wells  ferry  to  answer  the 
Road  on  the  other  side  to  come  into  the  former  road  at  Buckingham 
Meeting  House  to  answer  the  end  of  the  other.  And  there  was  a  ferry 
settled  by  law  to  accommodate  it  which  rendered  that  part  of  the  former 
road  useless  for  the  use  intended  upon  the  laying  out  of  the  second  that 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  681 

better  suited  the  purpose.  Your  petitioners  finding  that  some  persons 
want  it  opened  although  it  has  not  been  cleared  nor  used  many  years, 
which  will  greatly  dammify  your  petioners  lands  and  be  a  great  charge 
for  the  Township  to  maintain  two  roads  for  one  use  within  3  miles  one 
of  another.  Therefore  we  humbly  request  that  3'ou  will  grant  an  order 
for  the  making  void  that  part  of  the  said  road  from  the  River  against 
Reading's  Landing  that  was,  and  Buckingham  Aleeting  House,  and  your 
petitioners  shall  ever  pray  as  in  duty  bound. 

Edmund   Kinsey  John  Dawson  Thomas  Watson 

Edward   Hartley  John    Scarbrough  Matt  Hughes 

Thomas  Hartley  Benj.   Canby  Thomas   Canby 

John  Hartley  John  Watson  Nathaniel  Bye 

John   Skelton  Thomas   Heed  Joseph    Fell 

Edward  Beck  Thomas    Robinson  Ja   Holcombe 

William   GifTon  Sani'l   Eastburn  Enoch   Pearson 

Joshua  Ely  Thomas  Canby,  Junior  John    Bye 

John  Heed  John   Preston  John  Hill 

Joseph  Large  Thomas  Gilbert  John  Rich 

Richard    Norton 

The  above  petition  (signed  by  all  five  original  Solebury  pe- 
titioners of  1711)  indicates  that  the  road  to  Readings'  land- 
ing had  long  been  in  disuse  and  that  it  was  overgrown  and  would 
have  to  be  cleared  to  be  put  into  condition  for  use.  The  real 
occasion  for  the  petition  being  that  Daniel  Howell,  son-in-law^  of 
John  Reading,  was  attempting  to  establish  a  ferry  from  Reading 
landing  and  there  was  an  organized  attempt  among  some  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey  to  defeat  him.  An- 
other petition  on  the  same  subject,  but  without  date,  is  filed  with 
the  records  at  Harrisburg,  the  petition  was  probably  presented 
early  in  1731  and  reads  as  follows: 

To  His  Honor  the  Governor  and  Council  in  Philadelphia 
Sitting 
Whereas  there  was  a  road  laid  out  from  Philadelphia  to  the  River 
Delaware  opposite  John  Reading's  landing  many  years  ago  by  order 
of  the  Governor  and  Council,  upon  the  Promise  of  the  said  John  Read- 
ing and  the  inhabitants  of  West  Jersey  laying  out  a  road  from  the  said 
John  Reading's  landing  aforesaid  to  New  York. — But  instead  of  bring- 
ing their  road  to  the  said  John  Reading's  landing  aforesaid  (they  to  wit) 
the  inhabitants  of  West  Jersey  aforesaid,  brought  the  road  opposite  to 
John  W^ells  about  three  miles  below  the  said  Jo"  Readings.  Which 
obliged  the  inhabitants  of  Solebury  aforesaid  to  Petition  to  the  Court 
of  Quarter  Sessions  in  Bucks  for  a  road  from  John  Wells  into  the  for- 
mer Road  near  Buckingham  Meeting  House,  being  near  five  miles. 
And  a  ferry  being  settled  unto  the  said  John  Wells  by  an  Act  of  As- 


682  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

senibly  of  the  Province  whereby  the  road  to  New  York  might  be  ac- 
comadated  which  renders  that  part  of  the  aforesaid  road  from  Buck- 
ingham Meeting  House  to  the  river  opposite  John  Reading's  landing 
aforesaid,  which  is  now  Daniel  Howells,  useless  and  unnecessary.  And 
the  said  Daniel  Howell  endeavoring  to  force  us,  your  petitioners  to  open 
the  road  from  Buckingham  Meeting  House  to  the  River  as  aforesaid, 
thereby  to  promote  a  ferry  which  would  be  a  great  damage  to  your 
Petitioners  in  cutting  our  lands,  and  also  to  said  John  Wells  in  par- 
ticular. 

And  Whereas  some  time  since  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  Solebury 
aforesaid  Did  Humbly  petition  his  honor  the  Governor  &  Council 
aforesaid  that  that  part  of  the  road  from  Buckingham  Meeting  House 
to  the  river  opposite  Daniel  Howell's  Landing,  formerly  called  John 
Reading's  Landing  might  be  disanuled,  and  that  part  from  Buckingham 
Meeting  House  to  John  Wells  ferry  might  be  established  in  the  room 
thereof. 

And  Whereas  some  other  persons  of  the  inhabitants  of  Solebury  afore- 
said has  petitioned  his  Honor  the  Governor  that  that  part  of  the  road 
from  Buckingham  Meeting  House  to  the  river  opposite  Daniel  Howells 
landing  might  be  opened.  But  since  the  aforesaid  petitions  has  been  de- 
livered in  order  for  a  hearing  the  inhabitants  of  Solebury  aforesaid  have 
met  and  upon  further  consideration  hath  generally  concluded  that  if  in 
case  the  Road  was  opened  to  the  river  opposite  to  Daniel  Howells 
landing  aforesaid,  it  would  be  very  injurious  to  some  of  the  inhabi- 
tants' lands,  and  also  the  place  of  the  river  against  Daniel  Howells' 
Landing  is  not  commodious  nor  necessary  for  a  ferry  in  as  much  as  the 
said  John  Wells  ferry  is  but  about  three  miles  below  the  said  Daniel 
Howells'  landing. 

Also  the  aforesaid  John  Wells  having  kept  the  ferry  divers  years, 
with  good  boats,  very  good  accommadations  in  his  house  for  travelers, 
A  man  well  beloved  of  his  neighbors  for  keeping  good  order  in  his 
house,  has  always  behaved  himself  well  to  all  persons  as  becomes  him 
in  such  high  vocation,  therefore  the  humble  request  of  your  petitioners 
is  that  you  in  your  Wisdom  would  consider  the  premises  aforesaid  and 
your  favoring  our  request  will  much  oblige  your  Petitioners  (  ) 

and  (  )  we  shall  in  duty  bound  ever  pray. 

We  the  subscribers  to  this  Collum 
of  the  above  petition  do  certify  that 
we  know  the  matter  contained  in 
the  said  petition  to  be  true  &  therefor 
pray  the  Governor  and  Councils 
consideration  of  the  same. 

Thomas   Canby  James    Paxson 

Matt    Hughes  Henry    Paxson 

Jno  Kirkbride  jr.  John    Rathmell 

Abra  Chapman  William   Chadwick 

Jere  Langhorn  John  Bye 


THE    OLD   YORK    ROAD  683 

Christ.  ( )  Jos.    Lupton 

A.    Hamilton  Enoch    Pearson 

Isaac   ( )  ♦  Thomas   Canby  jr. 

John   Heed  Gefifery  Burgas 

John   Scholfield  John   Scarborough 

John    Pownall  Samll   Eastburn 

John   Hough  Thomas   PhiUips 
Henry   Roberts                                     '    Phill   (Pary    ?) 

Francis   Hough  John  Wells 

Thomas   Hartley  Jonathan   Dawson 

Joshua   Ely  Roger  Hartley 

John    Skelton  Edward    Hartley 

John   Dawson  Geo.   Pownall 

The  course  of  travel  to  New  York  through  the  Jersies,  from 
Wells  ferry  at  the  Amwell  crossing,  took  three  different  routes, 
namely,  the  Hopewell  road,  the  Amwell  road  and  the  Old  York 
road,  each  of  which  are  identified  with  a  different  epoch.  It 
must  be  clearly  understood  that  when  the  road  was  authorized 
through  Pennsylvania  in  1711  very  little  settlement  existed  above 
the  Amwell  crossing  on  either  side  of  the  river.  From  Pennsyl- 
vania, the  main  traffic  was  to  Perth  Amboy,  the  capitol  of  East 
New  Jersey,  through  Burlington,  the  capitol  of  West  New  Jer- 
sey, and  from  Perth  Amboy,  the  ferries  made  their  way  to  New 
York.  Another  route  from  Philadelphia  was  by  the  old  road  to 
the  Falls  and  thence  to  Perth  Amboy,  crossing  the  Raritan  river 
at  New  Brunswick.  And  so  some  of  the  earliest  travel  made  its 
way  from  the  Amwell  crossing  to  the  crossing  at  New  Brunswick, 
and  to  this  point  over  Hopewell  and  Amwell  roads.  The  Hope- 
well road  ran  from  the  ferry  to  Hopewell  and  then  joined  the 
old  path  from  the  Falls  of  Delaware  at  the  region  of  Rocky 
Ford.  The  other  route  passed  along  the  north  barrier  of  Neshan- 
ic  mountain,  through  Ringoes,  crossing  the  Millstone,  thence 
down  the  general  course  of  the  road  now  known  as  Amwell 
avenue,  to  New  Brunswick.  That  was  the  more  favored  route 
until  the  ferries  at  Prowles  Hook  began  their  regular  operation, 
which  made  it  feasible  to  cut  out  the  trip  through  New  Bruns- 
wick and  go  by  a  more  direct  route.  The  road  to  Ptowles  Hook 
was  the  stage  coach  route.  That  is  the  route  known  in  New 
jersev  as  the  Old  York  road  from  the  Amwell  ferries. 


684  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 


THE    HOPEWELL    ROAD. 


By  the  year  1710  Hopewe-ll  township  began  to  show  many 
evidences  of  settlement,  the  name  Hopewell  having  been  in  use 
as  early  as  1688,  when  on  May  20th  of  that  year  two  hundred 
acres  were  surveyed  to  Andrew  Smith.  (W.  J.  Deeds  Liber  B 
pt.  1,  p.  214.)  The  Hopewell  tract  was  resurveyed  to  Daniel 
Cox,  Jr.,  in  1707,  and  after  that  date  there  appears  to  have  been 
growing  evidences  of  settlement.  By  1720  the  tax  list  con- 
tained one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  names,  the  quantity  of  lands 
in  possession  being  16,995  acres,  more  than  one-half  of  which 
was  taken  up  by  settlers.  It  would  seem  reasonable  therefore, 
that  at  this  early  period,  a  traveler  might  seek  the  route  toward 
Hopewell.  We  have  already  seen  that  when  Daniel  Howell  at- 
tempted to  reestablish  the  ferry  at  Reading's  landing,  the  ma- 
jority of  those  signing  the  petition,  which  was  forwarded  to  the 
governor  and  council  of  Pennsylvania,  were  residents  of  Hope- 
well. The  road  from  the  Delaware  through  Hopewell  passed 
through  Samuel  Coates  land  over  Cottage  Hill  to  Hopewell  and 
joined  the  road  from  the  Falls  of  Delaware  (Trenton),  just  be- 
fore it  crossed  the  Millstone  at  Rocky  Ford.  The  point  where  it 
joined  the  road  is  shown  on  John  Dalley's  map  of  1745,  and  it  is 
called  the  Hopewell  road.  This  route  followed  an  old  Indian 
trail  which  led  from  the  Amwell  crossing  to  the  Indian  village  of 
Wishelemensey,  lying  between  Ringoes  and  Rocktown,  thence 
through  Hopewell  to  the  Minneponasson  village  near  Bardon's 
Brook  and  joined  the  path  from  the  Falls  to  New  Brunswick  at 
Rocky  Hill.  It  was  over  that  route  that  Washington  marched 
his  army  in  1778,  enroute  from  Valley  Forge  to  fight  the  battle 
at  Monmouth.  While  it  appears  that  during  the  early  days  some 
of  the  travel  followed  that  route,  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
the  route  favored  by  John  Reading." 

THE  AMWELL  ROAD. 

The  Amwell  road  took  a  course  as  far  as  Reaville  over  the 
road  now  commonly  known  in  Amwell,  as  far  as  Reaville,  as  the 
York  road,  and  in  Somerset  as  the  Amwell  road.  There  is  every 
evidence  that  that  route  was  used  as  early  as  the  route  through 
Hopewell.  The  petition  just  referred  to,  dated  1731,  states  that 
there  is  already  a  road  through  the  country  "in  opposition  to  a 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  685 

very  good  road  and  ferry  here,"  and  this  road  was  none  other 
than  the  York  road  through  Am  well.  The  will  of  Samuel  Coates 
dated  1722  calls  this  road  the  "Yoark  road,"  and  in  deeds  and 
other  references  about  that  time  it  is  called  the  King's  Highway 
or  the  York  road.  It  is  referred  to  by  the  former  title  in  a  deed 
dated  May  9,  1724,  from  Francis  Moore  to  John  Dagworthy  for 
one  hundred  acres  of  land  in  Ringoes.  The  same  title  is  used  for 
the  road  in  land  bought  by  John  Holcomb  from  John  Coate  in 
1733  and  that  is  the  road  known  in  Am  well  as  the  Old  York  road. 
The  Old  York  road  began  opposite  Wells  ferry  just  below 
Holcomb  island  on  land  surveyed  to  Benjamin  Field,  and  then 
passed  through  the  lands  then  in  possession  of  John  Holcomb 
through  a  tract  surveyed  to  Robert  Dimisdale.  thence  through  a 
two  hundred  and  sixty  acre  tract  purchased  by  John  Holcomb  in 
1709,  thence  along  the  border  of  the  Biddle  tract  of  one  thousand 
five  hundred  acres  to  Benjamin  Fields'  large  three  thousand  acre 
tract,  and  thence  through  a  large  tract  of  three  thousand  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety-three  acres  belonging  to  Field  and  William 
Stevenson,  and  a  tract  of  two  thousand  acres  belonging  to  Gov- 
ernor Andrew  Hamilton  and  Benjamin  Field  described  as  being 
"in  the  Adlord  Bowde  purchase  along  the  first  Eastern  line  there- 
of." Through  those  tracts  the  road  coursed  from  Lambertville 
through  Ringoes  to  Larison's  Corners.  The  state  road  now  turns 
out  of  the  Old  York  road  at  that  point  to  go  to  Flemington,  but 
there  was  no  Flemington  in  those  days,  Samuel  Fleming  not  having 
purchased  his  land,  at  the  present  site  of  that  town,  until  1756. 
From  Larisons  Corners  the  road  passed  to  Reaville  and  midway 
between  these  points  stood  the  old  church  that  John  Reading,  Jr., 
attended  after  its  organization.  From  Reaville  the  road  con- 
tinued to  Clover  hill  over  the  county  border  into  Somerset  county, 
but  no  longer  under  the  name  York  road.  From  Clover  hill  to 
Neshanic  the  road  passed  through  a  large  irregular  tract  of  land 
purchased  by  John  Bennett  in  1683;  thence  through  Flagtown  in 
the  Peter  Sonmans  tract;  thence  through  a  tract  of  three  hundred 
and  twenty  acres  purchased  by  Isaac  De  Riemer  of  Sonmans, 
March  13,  1711;  thence  through  the  upper  end  of  the  Harligen 
tract  purchased  by  a  Dutch  company  from  Long  Island  from 
Sonmans  June  10,  1710;  and  thence  through  the  lands  taken  up 
in  1690  by  Clement  Plumstead  to  the  Millstone  river,  through  the 


686  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

large  tracts  of  William  Dockwra,  John  Harrison,  Daniel  Cox, 
to  John  Inions  Raritan  lot  at  New  Brunswick.  Several  Dutch 
companies  settled  along  the  route  of  that  road  and  in  the  large 
tracts  mentioned  all  of  which  tracts  had  been  taken  up  before  the 
year  1700.  Certainly  by  the  year  1710  when  the  Dutch  company 
settled  the  Harlingen  tract,  there  was  need  for  a  road  and  what 
is  now  known  as  the  Am^well  road  was  soon  after  opened  for  their 
accommodation.  A  bridge  was  probably  built  across  the  Mill- 
stone by  1720,  the  road  passing  through  Middlebush  on  the  way 
to  New  Brunswick.  And  so  the  road  has  been  called  the  Amwell 
road  by  the  inhabitants  of  Hillborough  township,  and  by  the  name 
York  road  by  the  Amwell  inhabitants. 

Teedyuscung,  the  Delaware  Indian  chief,  called  it  the  Bruns- 
wick road  in  1756.  He  claimed  a  tract  of  two  thousand  five  hun- 
dred acres  along  the  road  which  he  said  had  never  been  sold  but 
reserved  for  the  use  of  the  Indians.    Thus  he  described  the  tract : 

"Beginning  at  Ringoes  and  extending  along  the  Brunswick  Road  to 
Neshannock  Creek,  thence  up  the  same  to  George  Hattens,  thence  in  a 
straight  course  to  Pettit's  place,  and  so  on  to  a  hill  called  Paatquack- 
tung  (Copper  Hill)  thence  in  a  straight  line  to  the  place  of  beginning, 
which  tract  was  reserved  at  the  sale  and  marked  out  by  Wawhaway 
who  is  alive."     (Smith's  New  Jersey,  p.  445.) 

DUTCH   REFORMED   CHURCHES. 

The  settlements  which  extended  along  the  Amwell  road  from 
New  Brunswick  were  mainly  of  the  Dutch.  One  can  trace  the 
progress  of  the  Dutch  settlement  through  the  Dutch  Reformed 
Churches  of  East  Jersey  from  its  earliest  settlement.  Among  the 
earliest  are  those  of  Bergen  (1660),  Hackensack  (1686), 
Acquackanock  (1693).  Freehold  (1699),  Raritan  (Somerville) 
(1699),  Middletown  (Holmdel)  (1699),  Second  River  Belle- 
ville) (1699),  Three  Mile  Run  (Franklin)  (1709.  Of  eleven 
churches  in  Somerset  county,  during  revolutionary  time,  seven 
were  Dutch  Reformed.  And  along  the  old  road  the  invasion  of 
the  Dutch  Churches  entered  Hunterdon  county,  where  one  of  the 
oldest  Amwell  churches  still  stands  at  Pleasant  Corners.  First 
called  the  High  Dutch  Calvenistical  or  Preisbeterian  Church ;  in 
1800  German  Presbyterian  Church  of  Amwell;  1809  Amwell 
Dutch  Reformed  Church;  1810  United  First  Church  of  Amwell. 
At  Millstone  is  a  Dutch  Reformed   Church  dating   from   1767. 


THE    OLD   YORK    KOAD  687 

At  Neshanic  a  Dutch  Reformed  Church  dating  from  August  25, 
1752.  And  at  Clover  Hill  on  the  border  of  Hunterdon  county  a 
Dutch  Reformed  Church  organized  1834  which  became  Presby- 
terian in  1838,  and  remained  so  until  1862,  when  it  again  became 
Dutch  Reformed.  In  contrast  to  these  Dutch  Reformed  Churches 
along  the  Amwell  Road,  are  the  old  Quaker  Meeting  Houses  at 
Abington,  Horsham,  Buckingham,  and  Solebury,  and  the  old 
Presbyterian  Churches,  spreading  their  influence  over  the  Old 
York  road  of  Pennsylvania. 

THE  OLD  YORK  ROAD  THROUGH   NEW  JERSEY. 

There  is  an  old  map  of  East  Jersey  sometimes  called  the  Keith 
map,  but  more  correctly  known  as  the  Reed  map  of  1685.  It  was 
published  in  Whitehead's  "East  Jersey  under  the  Proprietors." 
That  map  shows  very  plainly  the  early  taking  up  of  land  by  the 
East  Jersey  proprietors.  There  is  a  line  of  lots  extending  from 
Elizabethtown  along  the  foot  of  Wachung  mountain  toward  Green 
Brook  and  Bound  Brook  and  along  the  north  boundary  of  Rari- 
tan  river  to  the  north  and  south  branch.  And  there  is  another 
map  in  possession  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society  published 
in  Bolton's  Indian  Paths  of  the  Great  Metropolis  (Heye  Mono- 
graphs), which  shows  all  of  the  land  tracts,  along  the  north  side 
of  the  Raritan,  purchased  from  the  Indians  from  Bound  Brook 
to  the  boundary  between  Somerset  and  Hunterdon  counties.  And 
all  that  land  was  purchased  by  1688.  Reference  may  also  be 
made  to  purchasers  of  one  hundred  and  forty-two  lots,  and  the 
date  of  their  purchase,  on  map  No.  HI  of  the  Elizabethtown  bill 
in  Chancery.  It  was  along  these  settlements  that  a  road  was  to 
make  its  way  later  to  join  the  road  from  the  Delaware.  A  large 
part  of  it  was  an  old  Indian  path  to  which  reference  is  made 
from  time  to  time  in  the  old  Raritan  deeds,  notably  one  of  Cod- 
rington's  deeds.  The  scattered  settlements,  largely  of  Dutch, 
found  their  way  to  Holland's  brook,  and  even  as  far  and  beyond 
the  Cushetunk  hills,  in  Hunterdon  county. 

The  earliest  road  that  went  to  those  settlements  was  known  as 
the  "Road  up  Raritan,"  Capt.  Thomas  Codrington,  John  White, 
James  Graham,  Peter  and  Jerome  Van  Nest,  and  Cornelius 
Tunison  all  settled  early  along  the  north  bank  of  Raritan  river 
between  the  north  and  south  branches  and  Bound  Brook.     The 


688  THE    OLD    YORK    ROAD 

road  up  Raritan  was  opened  in  1684  as  will  appear  from  the  fol- 
lowing memorandum.  Liber  A  p.  433,  Deeds  and  Patents  of  East 
Jersey.) 

"Memorandum  that  whereas  by  Virtue  of  an  act  of  Assembly,  we  the 
persons  under  subscribed  were  by  Virtue  of  the  said  act  appointed  for 
laying  out  the  highways  for  the  county  of  Middlesex,  in  prosecution 
thereof,  the  twenty  sixth,  twenty  seventh  and  twenty  eight  days  of  this 
instant,  we  have  marked  and  laid  out  the  Ways  as  follows:  On  from 
John  White's'  plantation  on  Raritan  River  along  upon  a  ridge  of  up- 
land on  or  near  the  old  Indian  path  to  the  north  side  of  Captain 
Codrington's  and  all  the  meadows  down  to  Major  James  Gyles,  at 
which  place  there  is  to  be  a  bridge  for  horse  and  wagon;  from  there  to 
along  the  upland  near  the  meadows  on  Raritan  River  to  Bellowes  plan- 
tation, and  through  his  cornfield  as  the  trees  are  marked;  from  thence 
to  Aaron  Jacob's  through  his  field,  his  house  being  in  the  middle  of  the 
highway  as  the  trees  are  marked;  from  thence  by  marked  trees  to  Vin- 
cent Rungimone's'  land;  and  it  is  agreed  that  there  should,  be  a  foot- 
way elevated  along  Raritan  River  side  through  the  long  meadow,  con- 
tinued to  Captain  Codrington's  and  upward,  and  from  there  down  to 
the  river,  the  highways  to  be  taken-  one  halfe  out  of  Hopewell  Hull's 
lott  and  the  other  halfe  out  of  Vincent's  Lott  being  in  all  one  hundred 
feet  in  breadth,  and  from  Vincent's  by  the  line  of  marked  trees  to  Cap- 
tain Greenlands;  and  from  thence  in  the  old  road  to  Piscataway;  and 
from  thence  in  the  old  road  to  woodbridge;  and  from  thence  along  the 
ordinary  road  above  Captain  Pike's  second  creeke;  and  from  thence  by 
line  of  marked  trees  through  the  woods  along  the  east  side  of  Captain 
Pike's  fresh  and  boggy  meadow;  thence  into  the  highway  that  leads 
into  the  market-place  in  Amboy,  and  from  the  highway  that  leads  into 
the  Sound  through  the  said  market  place  by  a  line  of  marked  trees  to 
the  north  side  of  James  Reed's  fence  and  thence  by  the  west  side  of 
Captain  Codrington's  land;  and  thence  along  the  northmost  end  of 
Woolfe's  swamp  from  thence  by  a  line  of  marked  trees  into  the  road 
leading  from  Piscataway  to  Woodbridge;  from  Woodbridge  the  usual 
road  to  the  corner  of  Samuel  Smith's'  land;  and  from  thence  by  a  line 
of  marked  trees  over  the  upper  branch  of  meeting  house  brooke;  and 
from  thence  by  marked  trees  to  the  First  Branch  of  Raway  River; 
from  thence  by  marked  trees  to  the  Second  Branch  of  said  river. 

Dated  the  twenty-eighth  day  of  the  month  called  June  one  thousand 
six  hundred  and  eighty  four. 

Gawen   Lawrie  Samuel  Downds 

Conrad   Slatter  John   Greenman 

Hopewell  Hull  Samuel  Moore. 

Here  was  a  road  that  passed  from  John  White's  plantation 
not  far  from  the  present  location  of  Somerville  thence  along  the 
river  crossing  the  Sacunk  or  Bound  Brook,  and  thence  along  the 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  689 

setflements  on  the  east  side  of  the  river  to  Captain  Greenland's 
plantation,  which  was  near  Inion's  ferry,  and  thence  into  the 
Piscataway,  Woodbridge  road  to  Amboy.  From  Perth  Amboy 
the  road  then  led  north  toward  Elizabethtown,  the  description 
being  carried  as  far  as  the  second  branch  of  Rahway  river.  This 
road  was  not  a  very  direct  route  to  New  York,  and  favored  the 
Perth  Amboy  route.  From  White's  plantation,  the  old  Indian 
path  referred  to,  led  along  the  general  course  of  the  dotted 
line  shown  in  Reed's  map  of  1686  to  the  forks  of  the  Raritan. 
One  of  the  branches  of  the  path  followed  the  course  of  the  river 
into  Hunterdon  county,  which  was  at  that  time  a  wilderness  in- 
habited only  by  the  Indians. 

A  more  direct  route  of  the  road  up  Raritan  was  opened  up 
later  which  crossed  from  the  old  settlement  of  Piscataway  to 
the  settlement  at  Bound  Brook.  And  certainly  by  1686,  settlers 
were  finding  their  way  by  this  route  or  an  even  more  direct 
route,  from  settlements  on  the  west  side  of  the  north  branch 
to  attend  church  at  Woodbridge.  These  settlers  had  located  on 
the  tract  of  Lord  Neil  Campbell  at  the  forks  of  the  Raritan  and 
along  the  west  side  of  the  north  branch.  And  it  seems  very 
probable  that  in  their  route  they  passed  through  the  settlement 
along  Cedar  Brook  to  the  eastward  of  the  present  Plainfield. 
Here  there  was  an  early  Scotch  settlement.  Among  those  settled 
here  was  Robert  FuUerton,  who  writing  to  his  brother  on  Jan- 
uary 7,  1685,  says : 

"Since  that  time  (the  date  of  his  last  letter  Nov.  1684)  we  have 
possessed  our  Selves  in  the  above  mentioned  plan  11  miles  from  New 
Perth,  four  from  Raritan  northward  and  12  from  Elizabeth  town;  we 
have  the  honor  to  be  the  first  Inland  planters  in  this  part  of  America, 
for  the  former  Settlements  have  been  by  the  river  sides,  which  are  all 
possessed  by  the  Quit  renters:  which  I  would  have  grudge  at  had  I 
not  found  the  goodness  of  the  land  upwards  will  countervail!  the  trouble 
of  transportation  to  the  water." 

In  March,  1685,  he  writes  to  his  brother : 

"We  have  chosen  our  chief  Plantation  and  yours  two  miles  further 
up  Country  close  under  the  blew  mountains"  (Watchung). 

Thomas  Gorden  writing  from  Cedar  Brook,  February  16,  1684, 
in  a  letter  intended  for  George  Alexander,  Advocate,  Edinburgh, 
says : 


690  THE   OLD    YORK    ROAD 

"There  are  eight  of  us  settled  here  within  hah'  a  mile  or  a  mile'  of 
each  other,  and  about  10  miles  from  the  town  of  New  Perth  or  Amboy 
point,  so  that  I  can  come  or  go  in  a  day  either  on  foot  or  horseback, 
viz:  Robert  and  Thomas  Fullertouns,  James  Johnston  of  Spottswood, 
John  Forbes,  John  Barclay,  Doctor  John  Gordon  his  servants,  Andrew- 
Alexander  and  myself." 

James  Johnston  writing  from  his  plantation  at  Blew  Hills  says : 
"There  is  a  Flee  by  the  salt  marshes  most  troublesome  in  sum- 
mer, but  it  is  not  so  in  the  uplands."  Thus  he  refers  to  the  mos- 
quito one  of  the  original  inhabitants  of  East  Jersey.  Referring 
to  Reed's  map  we  may  find  the  plantations  of  Fullerton,  Forbes 
and  others  along  the  upper  reaches  of  Green  brook  and  Bound 
brook  at  the  foot  of  the  "Blew  Hills."  And  along  this  course 
when  the  stage  coaches  began  their  operation  along  the  Old  York 
road  in  1769,  they  journeyed  over  this  route  from  Bound  Brook 
to  Elizabethtow^n.  The  early  course  of  the  road  is  very  in- 
definite. In  the  year  of  1720  William  Sharp  and  John  Campbell 
both  residents  on  Lord  Neill's  plantation  in  1686  made  the  fol- 
lowing despositions. 

"William  Sharp  of  Woodbridge  in  the  County  of  Middlesex  in  the 
Province  of  New  Jersey,  yeoman,  aged  about  fifty-seven  years,  maketh 
oath  on  ye  Holy  Evangelists  of  Almighty  God  that  he  thus  deposeth, 
from  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty-six  (1686)  that  he  settled 
upon  the  north  side  of  ye  Raritan  River  near  the  meeting  of  North  and 
South  branches,  he  used  yt  road  which  was  commonly  called  and  es- 
teemed the  highway  said  to  have  been  laid  out  by  the  authority  of  ye 
government  of  the  province  of  New  Jersey.  During  the  nine  years 
that  he  lived  there,  the  highway  led  from  Bound  Brook  near  to  Mr. 
Giles  house,  through  the  land  late  in  the  tenor  of  John  Rudyard,  and  so 
behind  the  improved  land  of  Capt.  Coddington,  Mr.  White,  and  ye  other 
inhabitants  unto  ye  North  Branch  of  ye  said  river,  to  the  upper  end 
of  a  plantation  on  ye  west  side  thereof. 

William  Sharp,  April  29,  1720." 

"John  Campbell  of  Piscatua  in  the;  county  of  Middlesex  in  the  province 
of  New  Jersey,  aged  about  fifty  eight  years  maketh  deposition  on  the 
Holy  Evangelists  of  Almighty  God  that  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1686, 
this  deponent  was  coming  down  Raritan  river  with  several  of  the  ser- 
vants of  Lord  Neil  Campbell  going  to  Woodbridge  meeting.  There 
being  no  way  this  deponent  knew  but  through  the  enclosure  of  Mr. 
John  White,  deceased,  they  were  stopt  by  Mr.  White  by  his  gate  for 
some  little  time,  but  then  not  before  this  deponent  and  other  servants 
returned.  Ye  said  Mr.  White  went  to  Amboy  to  Governor  Lowry  and 
complained  against  them,  who  were  called  before  the  said  Governor 
Lowry,   and   answered   they  knew   no   other   wav.     The   Governor   said 


THE   OLD    YORK    ROAD  691 

there  should  be  a  way  to  go  up  the  country  clear  of  Mr.  White  and  the 
other  inhabitants  improvements.  Accordingly,  before  this  deponent, 
with  others  aforesaid,  went  up  the  way  marked  out,  leading  from  Bound 
Brook  near  Mr.  Giles  house,  through  the  lands  late  in  tenure  of  Mr. 
John  Rudyard,  behind  the  rear  of  all  the  improved  lands  behind  his 
fields,  and  so  several  inhabitants  on  the  said  Raritan  River,  to  the  North 
Branch  thereof,  at  or  near  the  upper  end  of  a  plantation  on  the  west 
side  of  the  said  branch  belonging  to  Peter  Van  Voste  (Neste),  and  that 
during  the  space  of  nine  years  that  said  deponent  lived  up  the  Raritan 
and  South  Branch  thereof,  he  always  understood  that  to  be  ye  highway 
laved  out  by  ye  authority  of  ye  government  of  East  Jersey. 

John   Campbell,  April  29,    1720." 

"Peter  Van  Nest  of  the  County  of  Somerset  in  the  provice  of  New 
Jersey  yeoman  aged  about  sixty  years,  Maketh  Oath  on  the  Holy 
Evangelists  of  Almighty  God  that  this  deponent  to  the  best  of  his  knowl- 
edge, in  the  year  1686,  Hendrick  Cosendal  and  William  Richardson 
came  to  this  deponent's  house  and  told  him  that  by  order  of  Governor 
Lowry,  the  Governor  of  East  New  Jersey,  they  had  been  marking  out 
a  way  leading  from  Mr.  Codrington's'  land  behind  the  improved  land 
of  Mr.  White  and  so  leading  across  a  brook  called  by  the  name  of  the 
deponent,  Peters  brook,  near  the  place  where  he  hath  since  erected  a 
grist  mill,  and  continuing  behind  the  improved  lands  belonging  to  the 
inhabitants  to  the  North  Branch  of  Raritan  River  near  to  a  place 
whereon  William  Dunlap  then  lived,  which  is  near  to  the  upper  end  of 
a  plantation  on  the  west  side  of  the  said  branch  belonging  to  the  said 
deponent.  Some  time  after  in  the  time  when  Col.  Hamilton  was  Gov- 
ernor of  East  Jersey  this  deponent  was  chosen  overseer  of  ye  highways 
by  ye  inhabitants  of  Somerset,  and  according  to  ye  law  or  custom  of 
ye  said  province  of  East  Jersey  he  called  ye  inhabitants  of  Somerset 
together  and  repaired  yi  said  highway  from  Bound  Brook  to  that 
place,  on  ye  north  Branch  aforesaid,  and  that  ye  said  highw^ay  con- 
tinued without  any  alteration,  so  far  as  deponent  knoweth  until  within 
this  four  or  two  years  that  Jacob  Rapeties  fenced  in  part  thereof,  and 
further  this  deponent  sayeth  not. 

Peter  Van  Neste,  Jurat  Coremus,  Wm.  Eier,  April  ye  29th  1720." 
(Snells  History  of  Hunterdon  and  Somerset  Co.) 

The  bridge  across  Bound  brook  was  authorized  in  1728  and  in 
the  act  reference  is  made  to  the  road  leading  from  Piscattaway 
to  Bound  Brook  in  the  following  words : 

"And  it  is  further  enacted  by  the  Authority  aforesaid  that  as  soon 
as  may  be  convenient  after  the  publication  of  this  act  there  shall  be  a 
bridge  built  over  the  Bound  Brook  in  the  most  commodious  place  on  the 
north  east  side  of  the  road  as  it  lies  from  Piscataway  in  the  county  of 
Middlesex  up  Raritan  River;  which  bridge  shall  be  built,  rebuilt  and 
amended  at  the  equal  expense  of  the  county  of  Middlesex  aforesaid 
and  the  two  upper  precincts  of  the  county  of  Somerset." 


692  THE    OLD    YORK    ROAD 

It  was  not  "convenient"  however  for  the  bridge  to  be  built 
until  1731  and  a  little  pressure  had  to  be  brought  to  bear  by  a 
supplementary  act,  providing  "pains  and  penalties"  for  those  per- 
sons who  refused  to  perform  the  duties  thus  imposed  upon  them. 
The  road  to  Piscattaway  led.  according  to  Deshler,  from  Piscat- 
taway  through  Metuchen,  to  New  Market  to  Bound  Brook. 

Fragments  of  the  old  Raritan  road  from  Elizabethtown  still 
exist  passing  to  the  eastward  of  Westfield  and  Plainfield,  through 
which  towns  the  stage  coaches  later  passed.  A  part  of  this  old 
Raritan  road  so  called,  from  Willow  Grove  to  iVlton  and  Avon 
Park  may  still  be  traced.  There  is  however  a  paucity  of  informa- 
tion as  to  how  our  ancestors  traveled  to  New  York  over  that 
part  of  the  Old  York  road  from  Bound  Brook.  The  eflforts  of 
the  Scotch  proprietors  were  all  directed  toward  making  Perth 
Amboy  the  principal  town  of  East  Jersey,  and  it  is  quite  natural 
that  they  should  lay  their  roads  in  that  direction.  Such  a  course 
would  have  been  acceptable  to  the  many  emigrants  that  came 
from  Long  Island  who  could  cross  at  Billop  ferry  to  Staten  Is- 
land and  across  the  island  to  ferry  the  Narrows  to  Gravesend. 
Lawrie  never  lived  in  Perth  Amboy,  but  continued  to  reside  in 
Elizabethtown  until  his  death  in  1687,  notwithstanding  the  ex- 
pressed wish  of  the  proprietors  that  he  remove  to  Perth  Amboy. 
Later  governors,  however,  did  reside  in  Amboy. 

John  Reading,  Jr.,  describes  in  his  diary,  a  trip  to  Elizabeth- 
town  from  his  father's  house  in  Amwell.  But  he  did  not  take 
the  course  down  the  Raritan  road.  In  April.  1715,  he  with 
others,  left  his  father's  house  at  3  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  reach- 
ing Solomon  Davis  house  on  the  South  Branch  of  the  Raritan 
between  8  and  9  that  evening.  They  left  the  house  of  Solomon 
Davis  at  11  o'clock  next  morning,  went  to  the  North  Branch  of 
Raritan  as  far  as  And.  Denike's  house,  thence  across  to  Jacob 
Peat's  house  on  Passiac,  arriving  there  at  8  o'clock.  From 
thence  they  followed  that  river  to  the  road  leading  from  Whip- 
paning  to  Elizabethtown. 

It  was  not  until  the  year  1764  that  we  hear  much  more  about 
that  part  of  the  old  road  through  Somerset  county,  and  at  that 
time  it  was  relaid  jointly  by  surveyors  of  Hunterdon  and  Som- 
erset counties.  There  were  also  active  measures  taken  the  fol- 
lowering  year,  1765,  for  opening  the  road  from  Powles  Hook,  to 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  693 

Newark,  and  in  1769,  the  first  stage  coaches  were  advertised  to 
go  over  the  "Old  York  road"  from  Powles  Hook  to  Newark  to 
EHzabethtown  to  Bound  Brook  to  the  North  Branch  of  Raritan, 
to  Coryell's  Ferry  to  Crooked  Billet  to  Philadelphia. 

Before  1764  much  difficulty  had  been  experienced  keeping  the 
Raritan  road  open  until  action  was  taken  by  a  Board  of  Justices 
and  Freeholders  of  Somerset  county.  (Road  Book  No.  1,  pp.  63 
and  64.)  Among  the  surveyors  at  that  time  were  Richard  Hol- 
combe  who  resided  at  Coryell's  Ferry,  Abraham  Prall  who  resided 
between  Ringoes  and  Reaville,  then  called  Manners  Tavern,  and 
later  Greenville,  and  four  others  of  Hunterdon  county,  namely, 
Samuel  Barnhardt,  Benew  Dunham,  Henry  Traphangen  and 
Andrew  Emas.     Thus  they  recite  in  part  their  action : 

"Whereas  it  hath  been  found  by  many  years  experience  that  that 
part  of  the  Raritan  Road,  so  called,  on  the  north  side  of  Raritan  River 
leading  from  North  Branch  of  said  river  down  the  same  to  Bound 
Brook,  hath  been  subject  to  Sundry  disputes  and  difficulties  attending 
thereto,  and  in  order  for  remedy,  v^^hereof  application  hath  been  made 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Bridgewater,  in  Somerset  County,  to  us  whose 
names  are  underwritten  and  subscribed,  being  twelve  surveyors  for 
roads  and  highways  for  the  time  being,  six  of  us  residing  in  the  County 
of  Somerset  aforesaid,  and  being  legally  chosen  for  that  purpose  and 
the  other  six  residing  in  the  adjacent  county  Hunterdon,  and  being  also 
legally  chosen  for  that  purpose  aforesaid,  that  the  said  road,  being  dis- 
advantageous to  the  oner  and  oners  the  lands  through  which  it  passes, 
praying  the  same  may  be  altered  and  regulated  by  us  said  surveyors  at 
our  discretion,  and  after  public  notice  thereof  advertised  for  at  least 
twenty  days  agreeable  to  law  in  such  cases  made  and  provided,  we  the 
surveyors  above  cited,  having  met  on  the  premises  for  the  same  purpose 
and  after  hearing  the  grievances  and  allegations  of  the  inhabitants  afore- 
said, do  agree,  and  pursuant  to  the  power  and  authority  given  to  us  by 
law  of  the  province  of  New  Jersey  and  in  discharge  of  our  duty  to  alter 
and  regulate  the  said  road  we  do  determine  and  herein  certify  that  the 
said  road  shall  run  and  be  continued  as  a  public  four  yard  road  as  fol- 
loweth: —  viz: — 

Beginning  at  the  Bridge  by  the  mouth  of  the  north  branch  of  said 
Raritan  River  b}^  the  foot  or  east  end  of  said  bridge,  on  the  east  side  of 
said  branch,  and  from  thence  to  run  down  said  road  x  x  x  x  to  a  sign 
post  of  Garret  Garrison;  thence  x  x  x  x  to  a  black  oak  tree;  thence 
X  X  X  X  to  a  white  oak  tree  near  said  John  Biggs;  thence  x  x  x  x  to 
Garret  Roebooms  line;  thence  to  the  line  of  land  belonging  to  Jacob 
Vanostrandth  Esq.;  so  continuing  said  course  north  x  x  x  to  the  black- 
smith-shop now  belonging  to  said  Vanostrandth  to  land  of  Samuel 
Staats   Coejmans,   Esq.,  and  so   continuing  the  said   course   x  x  x  x  to 


694  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

Jonathan  Runyans  line  and  so  continuing  to  the  line  of  Cornelius 
Middaugh;  thence  x  x  x  x  to  Geo.  Middagh's  line;  then  x  x  x  x  to 
the  gate  of  the  parsonage  land  of  the  Dutch  congregation  now  in 
tenure  and  occupation  of  the  Rev'd  Mr.  Hardenberge,  and  so  continu- 
ing running  x  x  x  x  to  Phillip  Tunisons  line;  thence  south  to  Fritts' 
Hotel  to  Peters  Brook,  so  called,  thence  x  x  x  x  to  the  line  of  Derrick 
Van  Vetchens  land;  thence  x  x  x  x  to  Cornelius  Van  Homes  land, 
thence  on  the  same  course  x  x  x  x  to  a  road  leading  to  Cornelius  Van 
Horn's  dwelling  house,  thence  x  x  x  x  to  Middle  Brook;  thence  x  x  x  x 
to  the  house  of  Benjamin  Harris;  thence  x  x  x  x  to  the  middle  of  Bound 
Brook  stone  bridge. 

In  testimony  whereof  we,  the  surveyors  aforesaid,  have  hereunto  set 
our  hands  this  thirtieth  day  of  June,  Anno  Domini,  one  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  sixty-four,  and  in  the  fourth  of  His  A'[ajestye"s  reign. 
William   Lane  Samuel    Barnhardt 

Peter   Dumont  Benew  Dunham 

Garret   Voorhees  Henry  Traphagen 

Peter  Van   Pelt  Andrew   Emaus 

Benjamin    Taylor  Abraham  Prall 

Samuel  Brinton  Richard   Holcombe 

Surveyors  for  Somerset.  Surveyors  for  Hunterdon. 

Recorded  the  30th  day  of  June  1765. 

(Snells  History  of  Hunterdon  and  Somerset  Co.) 

The  Old  York  road  through  Amwell  may  be  traced  from  the 
"bridge  at  the  mouth  of  the  north  branch,"  which  was  a  site  of 
one  of  the  earliest  settlements  in  Somerset  county  being  a  part 
of  lot  23  of  the  Elizabethtown  Bill  in  Chancery,  and  purchased 
by  Andrew  Hamilton,  October  13,  1687.  Just  above  the  mouth 
of  the  North  Branch  there  was  a  small  island.  In  1733  a  bridge 
was  built  from  the  east  shore  to  this  island,  and  from  the  island 
to  the  west  shore,  which  gave  the  name  "Two  Bridges,"  to  the 
community.  The  island  was  long  since  swept  away.  In  1706  a 
tract  there  of  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  acres  w^as  in  posses- 
sion of  Solomon  Davis.  John  Reading  in  his  diary  during  1715 
and  1716  mentions  stopping  at  Davis's  house  on  the  way  to  or 
from  Elizabethtown.  Solomon  Davis  sold  his  land  to  Andreas 
Ten  Eyck  in  1716  and  removed  to  the  Delaware  river  near  Minis- 
sink  island  where  John  Reading  speaks  of  again  visiting  him  in 
1719.  From  that  point  the  path  led  toward  the  Indian  village  of 
Mensalockanke,  near  High  Bridge.  But  near  the  junction  of  the 
North  and  South  branches  a  path  branched  ofif  toward  what  is 
now  Centreville  on  Pleasant  Run.  PJeasant  Run  was  early 
known  as  Campbell's  Brook  and  is  the  boundary  between  Somer- 


TIIF.    OI.l)    VOKK    R0A11  695 

set  and  Hunterdon  counties.  This  brook  falls  into  the  South 
Branch  about  two  miles  from  that  point.  Along  the  Raritan 
water-shed  are  two  Indian  village  sites  of  importance.  These  are 
Tukaramahacking  at  the  junction  of  the  North  and  South 
branches,  and  Racahvawalaby  at  Bound  Brook.  Prof.  Philhower 
traces  the  trail  up  the  Raritan  as  passing  through  Metochan, 
Managueskake  village,  at  New  Market,  thence  at  Matape's  wig- 
wam at  Rackahackwae  to  the  mouth  of  Middle  Brook,  thence  to 
Rackawackahack  at  Manville,  thence  to  Matanique  Island  and 
Tuckaramahacking  up  the  Neshanic  river  to  Wisomancy  (Wis- 
helemensy)  at  Rocktown  and  thence  to  Nissalamonca  at  Lambert- 
ville. 

In  1745  Am  well  township  appointed  separate  overseers  for 
each  of  the  main  roads  in  the  township,  called  the  Swamp  road, 
the  River  road,  the  Raritan  road  and  the  York  road.  William 
Hixson  and  Johannes  Williamson  were  overseers  for  the  York 
road.  On  September  28,  1734,  a  road  was  laid  out  from  the 
South  branch  of  Raritan  river  to  the  Delaware,  which  appears  to 
have  run  to  Howell's  ferry.  The  earliest  supervisors  of  high- 
ways of  which  we  have  record  in  Amwell  township  dates  from 
1721,  when  among  the  officers  of  Hunterdon  county,  George 
Green  and  John  Holcombe  were  appointed  the  surveyors  of  high- 
ways for  Amwell  township.  There  has  been  a  growing  popula- 
tion throughout  the  Jerseys. 

Hunterdon  county  increased  in  growth  rapidly.  In  1727  a 
sherifif's  census  taken  for  Governor  Burnet  reported  a  population 
of  2),2)77 .  Burlington  county  at  that  same  time  having  a  popula- 
tion of  4,039,  the  largest  in  the  province.  A  report  to  the  board 
of  trade  in  1738,  showed  an  increase  in  Hunterdon  county  to  5,533 
having  by  then  exceeded  the  population  of  Burlington  county 
whose  reported  population  was  5,238. 

By  1745  after  Morris  county  with  4,436  inhabitants  had  been 
separated  from  the  Hunterdon  county,  there  still  remained  a 
population  of  9,151,  the  largest  county  in  point  of  population 
within  the  state.  By  1790  she  still  maintained  the  lead  of  all  other 
counties  with  20,153  inhabitants.  By  1800  she  dropped  to  fourth 
place,  her  three  competitors  were  however  within  only  a  few  hun- 
dred above  her.  Essex  county  took  the  lead  in  1830  passing  a 
full    10,000   over   her   two   nearest   competitors,    Burlington   and 


696  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

Hunterdon,  between  which  two  counties  there  was  only  a  differ- 
ence of  forty-seven. 

FERRIES. 

One  great  obstacle  to  travel  in  the  early  days  was  the  ferries. 
Those  across  the  smaller  rivers  were  bad  enough,  but  the  exposed 
trip  to  reach  New  York  by  water  from  Amboy,  added  much  to 
the  hazard.  The  boats  used  for  ferry  purposes  were  compara- 
tively small,  adapted  only  for  the  carrying  of  passengers,  were 
propelled  by  hand  or  sail,  and  weather,  tide  and  season  all  had 
to  be  considered. 

As  to  the  ferries  to  accommodate  the  Old  York  road  during 
the  very  early  period  of  its  existence,  we  may  assume  that  in 
1712  when  the  road  was  first  organized,  that  John  Reading  pro- 
vided some  means  of  crossing  the  Delaware.  He  had  previous 
experience  as  a  ferryman  in  Gloucester,  having  secured  the  li- 
cense for  the  ferry  from  Gloucester  to  Wicaco  in  1695.  There 
is  no  evidence  to  indicate  that  there  was  a  ferryman  on  the 
Pennsylvania  side  opposite  his  landing  until  Joseph  Mitchell 
settled  there  in  1765  many  years  later.  Certainly  John  Wells 
began  to  operate  his  ferry  by  1717,  three  miles  below  the  Reading 
landing,  which  was  certainly  the  popular  ferry  for  many  years 
thereafter.  By  1730  the  upper  York  road,  on  Pennsylvania  side, 
was  in  disuse  and  though  Daniel  Howell,  the  son-in-law  of  Colonel 
John  Reading,  was  endeavoring  to  obtain  a  license  for  reestab- 
lishing the  old  ferry,  there  was  much  opposition,  by  certain  parties 
in  each  of  the  provinces.  It  was  not  until  October  25,  1746,  that 
Benjamin  Howell,  a  son  of  Daniel  Howell,  obtained  a  patent  for 
a  ferry  at  that  place,  from  the  Province  of  New  Jersey.  (AAA 
of  Commissions,  p.  264),  and  even  then  the  ferry  was  not  the 
favored  route.  Certainly  after  1726,  the  Wells  ferry  route  main- 
tained a  ferryman  on  each  side  of  the  river.  There  is  a  map  of 
Buckingham  township.  Pa.,  prepared  in  1726  on  which  the  "York 
road  falsely  socalled"  is  laid  down.  The  words  "falsely  so 
called"  might  indicate  that  the  road  was  not  a  popular  route  to 
New  York  in  those  days.  Inions  ferry  at  New  Brunswick,  and 
the  several  ferries  at  Perth  Amboy,  to  New  York,  to  Staten  Is- 
land and  to  South  Amboy  were  all  established  before  1711. 
The  bridge  across  the  Millstone  to  accommodate  the  Amwell  road 


THE   OLD    YORK    ROAD  697 

was  not  built  before  1720,  and  to  get  to  Powles  Hook  from 
Newark,  both  the  Hackensack  and  Passiac  rivers  and  several 
miles  of  swamp  had  to  be  crossed. 

In  the  year  of  1765  an  act  passed  the  New  Jersey  Assembly 
for  laying  a  road  from  Newark  to  the  public  road  from  Bergen 
Point  to  Paulus  Hook  on  Hudson's  river,  and  for  establishing 
ferries  across  the  rivers  Passaic  and  Hackensack.  Daniel  Og- 
den,  Daniel  Pierson,  Joseph  Riggs,  Jr.,  Nedmiah  Baldwin,  Es- 
quires, and  Joseph  Hedden,  Jr.,  Caleb  Camp,  Usal  Ward,  Joseph 
Rogers,  Jr.,  and  Thomas  Brown,  of  Bergen,  were  appointed 
trustees  to  lay  out  the  road  and  erect  the  ferries  over  Passiac  and 
Hackensack  rivers.  They  were  empowered  to  raise  donations  for 
that  purpose  not  in  excess  of  £5,000;  to  build  ferry  houses;  and 
make  causeways,  and  the  owners  of  the  soil  would  be  pennitted 
to  keep  the  ferries  should  they  please,  the  governor  and  his 
retinue  to  be  privileged  to  pass  the  ferry  free  of  charge.  Within 
four  years  of  that  act  stage  coaches  were  operating  over  the  Old 
York  road  to  Philadelphia  and  continued  up  to  the  time  that 
travel  by  stage  came  to  an  end.  Powles  Hook  developed  rapidly. 
By  1804  upwards  of  twenty  stages  a  day  arrived  and  departed 
from  that  point. 

In  1802  there  were  but  fifteen  persons  living  on  the  Hook.  In 
1829  it  was  incorporated  as  Jersey  City,  and  is  now  (1924)  the 
second  largest  city  in  New  Jersey  with  a  population  of  300,000, 
Powles  Hook,  or  Paulus  Hook,  provided  a  ferry  immediately 
opposite  to  New  York  without  the  necessity  of  the  long  water 
journey  from  the  East  Jersey  Capitol  to  Perth  Amboy. 
When  the  ferry  was  opened  to  Powles  Hook  in  1764  the  landing 
at  New  York  was  on  property  of  Abraham  Mesier  and  the  land- 
ing at  Powles  Hook  was  managed  by  Michael  Cornelison.  The 
old  road  from  the  ferry  ran  to  Bergen  hill,  thence  across  the 
Hackensack  river,  through  the  marsh  to  Passaic  river  at  the  old 
plank  road  bridge,  thence  up  the  neck  and  Ferry  street  into 
Newark. 

The  stage  coach  when  it  began  its  operation  in  1769,  proceeded 
from  Powles  Hook  through  Newark,  and  Elizabethtown  to 
Bound  Brook,  thence  to  Obadiah  Taylor's  house  on  the  South 
branch  of  Raritan,  thence  to  Coryell's  Ferry,  thence  through 
Crooked  Billet  to  Philadelphia.     The  advertisement  for  the  first 


698  Till-:    OLD    YORK    ROAD 

Stage  coach  appeared  simultaneously  in  the  New  York  and  the 
Philadelphia  newspapers.  I'he  following  advertisements  as  they 
appeared  in  each  newspaper  are  quoted.  It  will  be  noticed  that 
the  route  is  called  even  at  that  early  date,  the  Old  York  road. 

PENN    CHRONICLE 

Sept.  18-25-1769 

Phila.  Sept.  25,  1769. 

THE  NEW  STAGE 
To  New  York  on  the  Old  York  Road. 

Sets  out  tomorrow  26th  inst.  from  the  sign  Bunch  of  Grapes  in  Third 
St.  at  Sunrise,  proceeds  by  Crooked  Billet,  Coryell's  Ferry,  Bound 
Brook,  Newark  and  from  thence  to  Powles  Hook  opposite  to  New  York. 
It  will  set  out  regularly  every  Tuesday  Morning  during  the  Winter 
Season;  perform  the  journey  from  Philadelphia  to  Powles  Hook  in 
Two  Days  and  exchange  passengers  at  the  South  Branch  of  the  Raritan 
at  the  house  of  Obadiah  Taj^or  formerly  kept  l)y  Daniel  Seaburn,  on 
Wednesday  morning,  when  one  stage  returns  to  Philadelphia  and  the 
other  to  Prowles  Hook.  Each  Passenger  to  pay  10  shillings  from 
Philadelphia  to  the  South  Branch  and  10  shillings  from  the  South 
Branch  to  Powles  Hook,  ferriage  free,  and  three  pence  per  mile  for  any 
distance  between,  and  goods  at  the  rate  of  twenty  shillings  per  hundred 
weight  from   Philadelphia  to  New  York. 

That  part  of  the  country  is  very  pleasant;  the  distance  and  goodness 
of  the  road  not  inferior  to  any  from  this  to  New  York.  There  is  but 
one  ferry  from  this  to  Newark.  The  road  is  thickly  settled  by  a  num- 
ber of  wealthy  farmers  and  merchants  who  promise  to  give  every  en- 
couragement possible  to  the  stage.  And  as  the  principal  proprietors 
of  the  stage  live  on  the  road,  the  best  usage  may  be  expected. 

NEW  YORK  GAZETTE  OR  WEEKLY  POST  BOY 
October  2,   1769 
(View  of  a  stage  drawn  by  four  horses.) 
A  new  stage  is  now  erected  to  go  from   New  York  to   Philadelphia 
by  way  of  Powles  Hook,  from  thence  through  Newark  and   Elizabeth- 
town  to  Bound  Brook,  and  the  North  Branch  of  Raritan,  to  Coryell's 
ferry   the  only   ferry  between   Newark   and    Philadelphia,   noted   for   its 
shortness   and   conveniency    over    the    River    Delaware.      This    Road    is 
known   by  the   name   of  the   Old   York   Road   through   the   finest,   most 
pleasant  and  best  inhabited  part  of  New  Jersey.     It  is.  proposed  to  set 
off  from  Powles  Hook  every  Tuesday'  Morning  by  Sun-rise;  for  which 
reason  Passengers  should  cross  the  ferry  at  Powles  Hook  the  evening 
before  and   on   Tuesday   Evening  to   meet   the    Philadelphia   Wagon   at 
the  South  Branch  of  Raritan  where  there  is  accomadations  for  Travel- 
ers.     The    wagon    from    Philadelphia    sets    out   also    on    every    Tuesday 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  699 

Morning  from  Joshua  F.  Davenport's  sign  of  the  Bunch  of  Grapes  on 
Third  Street  and  proceeds  over  Coryell's  Ferry  to  the  South  Branch 
of  Raritan  v^'here  they  meet  the  Newark  Waggon  and  exchange  their 
fare  there,  each  Waggon  returns  to  the  place  they  set  out  from  by 
Wednesday  Evening.  In  this  stage  there  are  but  three  ferries  in  the 
whole  to  be  passed  and  the  Roads  in  general  good.  The  price  for 
each  Passenger  from  Powles  Hook  to  Philadelphia  will  be  Twenty 
Shillings  Proc.  or  Ten  Shillings  to  each  Waggon,  ferriage  to  the  Pas- 
sengers free.  Any  goods  will  be  carried  in  Proportion  to  their  Weight 
and  Bulk  and  as  there  will  be  but  two  drivers  there  will  be  less  danger 
of  Mistake  and  all  possible  Care  shall  be  taken  that  Justice  be  done  the 
Public  that  shall  please  to  employ. 

their  very  humble  servants 
Joseph   Crane 
Sept.   25,    1769.  Joshua  F.   Davenport 

Here  is  the  promise  to  make  the  trip  across  New  Jersey  in  two 
days.  Before  the  year  1733  travel  across  New  Jersey  was  a  pre- 
carious undertaking.  DeHman's  wagon,  in  Governor  Hamilton's 
time,  was  an  uncertain  factor.  Cornbury's  license  to  Hugh 
Huddy.  who  made  the  trip  once  each  fortnight,  was  considered  a 
monopoly.  When  Franklin  made  his  trip  in  1723  he  walked  from 
South  Amboy  to  Burlington  and  his  whole  trip  from  New  York 
consumed  a  little  over  five  days.  When  the  regular  stage  coaches 
were  started  in  1733,  once  each  week,  the  journey  lasted  three  or 
more  days  depending  upon  weather  and  the  elements,  the  trip 
being  made  from  Burlington  to  Amboy.  In  1738  the  Trenton- 
Brunswick  stage  made  the  trip  twice  each  week  and  the  wagon 
seats  were  provided  with  springs  and  the  top  covered  so  that 
the  passengers  might  "sit  easy  and  dry."  Joseph  Borden  started 
the  Bordentown  route  from  what  was  formerly  known  as  Farnes- 
worth's  landing,  in  1740,  and  it  was  a  three-day  trip.  Then  in 
1766  John  Barnhill  and  John  Masherew  (Mersereau)  gave  notice 
that  from  xA.pril  14th  to  November  14  that  year  they  purposed  to 
operate  "flying  machines"  which  would  perform  the  journey  in 
two  days  making  the  trip  twice  each  week.  The  Nczv  York  Post 
Boy,  of  1768,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that,  with  two  wagons 
and  four  sets  of  horses,  persons  might  then  go  from  New  York 
to  Philadelphia  and  back  in  five  days,  and  remain  two  nights  and 
one  day  in  Philadelphia."  (W^m.  H.  Benedict,  Proc.  N.  J.  Hist. 
Soc.  Vol.  VII.)  This  was  a  wild  and  hectic  journey  for  those 
days  and  it  cost  20  shillings  each  way.     This  in  brief  was  the 


700  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

Status  of  Stage  travel  when  in  1769,  they  began  operation  over 
the  Old  York  road.  During  the  revolutionary  period  the  stage 
travel  over  the  road  was  discontinued,  but  even  when  resumed  it 
was  still  practically  a  two-day  journey.  The  advertisement  of 
1827  over  that  route  shows  a  four-horse  coach,  housed  in  with 
baggage  on  the  rear  like  the  old  English  Oxford  coaches.  They 
left  Philadelphia  three  times  each  week  at  8  A.  M.  of  one  day, 
passing  through  Lambertville,  Flemington  to  Centerville  on  the 
border  of  Hunterdon  county,  where  they  stopped  for  the  night. 
The  next  morning  they  were  away  early  for  Somerville,  Bound 
Brook,  Plainfield,  Elizabethtown,  arriving  in  New  York  about 
2  P.  M.  The  through  fare  being  $3.50.  Bridges  were  a  great 
convenience.  We  have  already  seen  that  there  was  a  bridge 
across  the  Raritan  North  Branch  in  1764  and  also  at  Bound 
Brook  when  the  Old  York  road  was  opened.  The  act  to  build 
the  bridge  across  Delaware  "At  Joseph  Lambert's  formerly 
Coryell's  ferry,"  passed  the  New  Jersey  legislature  in  1809.  (34 
Sec.  1  Sit  Statutes  176.) 

The  earliest  roads  through  the  Jersies  and  Pennsylvania  wxre 
wilderness  trails  used  by  the  Indians,  and  though  when  first  laid 
out  were  marked  by  the  surveyors  and  overseers  as  of  greater 
width,  were  frequently  little  more  than  foot  paths.  The  Old 
York  road  through  New  Jersey  was  an  Indian  trail  of  this  char- 
acter. Along  the  Raritan  river,  reference  is  made  to  this  trail 
in  Codrington's  deeds,  and  also  in  the  memorandum  of  those  who 
laid  out  the  road.  Near  the  head  of  the  South  branch  of  the 
Raritan  was  the  Indian  village  of  Tamarmahacking  and  from 
there  a  path  led  to  the  Indian  village  at  Wishelemensey  not  far 
from  the  site  of  Ringoes.  There  another  Indian  path  crossed, 
which  came  up  from  the  Falls  of  Delaware.  From  Wishelemen- 
sey the  path  led  to  the  Delaware,  which  it  crossed.  On  the  Penn- 
sylvania side  of  the  river,  near  the  upper  branch  of  the  Old  York 
road  and  on  the  Croasdale  tract  .was  located  the  Indian  town 
Tcoqueminsey.  And  thence  the  path  was  directed  through  the 
Indian  plantations  at  Lahaska  now  Buckingham.  From  there 
the  path  led  to  Neshaminy  and  down  that  stream  was  the  Indian 
village  of  Playwicky.  Over  New  Jersey  was  a  veritable  net  work 
of  path  or  trails  leading  to  the  old  settlements.  Taverns  and 
mills  appeared  early  along  these  old  paths  or  trails. 


THE    OLD    YORK    ROAD  701 

Of  the  mills  of  greater  importance  along  the  Old  York  road 
soon  leaving  Philadelphia,  one  came  to  the  governor's  mill, 
built  in  1701.  Further  along  the  road  at  present  Ogontz 
was  Shoemaker's  mill.  At  Round  Meadow  near  the  Old 
York  road  was  the  Parry  mill  built  in  1731.  There  is  an  old  map 
among  the  Smith  manuscript  (Vol.  II,  p.  158)  at  Ridge  way  Li- 
brary, it  being  a  resurvey  of  a  part  of  the  Moreland  Manor, 
made  for  Samuel  Preston  More  in  1745.  This  map  shows  a 
short  section  of  the  York  road  with  Thomas  Parry's  mill  near 
by,  on  a  branch  of  Pennypack  creek.  At  the  Pennypack  there  is 
an  old  stone  mill  built  in  1724.  The  next  mill  is  located  at  Bridge 
Valley  on  the  Neshaminy.  At  New  Hope  there  was  the  Heath 
mill  and  the  Atkinson  mill,  later  called  the  New  Hope  mill.  On 
the  New  Jersey  side  of  the  Delaware,  was  Benjamin  Smith's  two 
mills  called  the  Prime  Hope  mills.  About  four  miles  from  the 
ferry  on  the  Alexauken  was  another  mill  belonging  to  Benjamin 
Smith.  That  mill  is  a  very  old  one  having  been  rebuilt  before 
1752,  at  which  date  it  was  advertised  for  sale  in  The  Pennsyl- 
vania Gaactte,  No.  1234.  There  were  mills  along  the  South 
Branch  of  Raritan  not  far  from  Three  Bridges,  and  one  of  those 
was  the  old  Holcomb  mill  later  used  as  the  Flemington  Water 
Works.  Mills  were  also  located  not  far  from  the  bridge  near  the 
forks  of  the  Raritan,  the  V^an  Home  and  the  Leake  mills.  The 
Van  Nest  mill  was  located  in  the  present  village  of  Somerville. 
All  these  mills  had  their  influence  upon  the  development  of  the 
old  road. 

TAVERNS. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  license  of  Peter  Jergou 
who  kept  an  ordinary  at  Lazy  or  Lasse  point  near  the  end  of  Bur- 
lington Island  as  early  as  September  10,  1688,  and  about  him  was 
a  small  settlement.  When  Danker  and  Sluyter  passed  through 
Burlington  in  1679,  as  we  have  already  seen,  they  arrived  after 
dark  and  as  no  lodging  could  be  obtained  in  the  "ordinary  tavern" 
they  went  back  to  Lazy  Point  and  lodged  with  Jacob  Hendricks. 
Some  of  the  early  tavern  keepers  or  innholders  of  Burlington 
before  the  year  of  1700,  were  Abraham  Senior  (1688),  Richard 
Bassnet  and  Henry  Grubb  (1697.)  At  Salem  bounds  Fopp 
Jansen  Outhout  had  received  his  license  to  keep  an  ordinary  as 


702  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

early  as  March  25,  1669.  Some  of  the  early  tavern  keepers  of 
Salem  were  William  Hull  and  his  wife  Elizabeth  (1692),  Ben- 
jamin Acton  (1694),  Michael  Hall  (1702)  and  James  Ridley 
(1705).  At  Perth  Amboy  some  of  the  early  tavern  holders  were, 
Robert  Cole  and  Samuel  Gibson  who  had  ordinarys  there  as 
early  as  1688.  Robert  Cole  and  his  wife  Mary  (widow  of  Ed- 
ward Walton)  had  come  to  Jersey  in  1684  as  indentured  servants 
of  the  Scott's  proprietors  for  four  years  and  four  years  later  we 
find  him  buying  land  in  Perth  Amboy  (1688)  giving  as  his  oc- 
cupation, an  innholder.  In  1700  Cole  and  his  wife  were  witnesses 
to  the  will  of  Mary  Inions,  wife  of  John  Inions  who  kept  the 
ferry  and  tavern  at  New  Brunswick.  Other  innholders  here  were 
John  Hooks,  1694,  and  English  Smith.  Travelers  passing  be- 
tween Philadelphia  and  New  York  have  left  us  mention  of  the 
houses  where  they  stopped.  Colonel  Potter  of  Virginia  on  July 
18,  1690,  upon  reaching  the  region  of  the  Falls  of  Delaware 
stopped  at  Mr.  Penn's  (at  Pennbury),  and  lodged  at  Mr.  Wheel- 
er's (Gilbert  Wheeler)  who  resided  on  the  Pennsylvania  side. 
Danker  and  Sluyter  in  1679  stopped  at  the  house  of  Henry  Green- 
land at  Raritan  river  and  at  the  house  of  the  miller  (Mahlon 
Stacy),  on  the  west  side  of  Delaware.  Colonel  Potter  when  he 
crossed  the  river,  hired  a  horse  and  guide  hoping  to  reach  Eliza- 
bethtown  that  night,  but  he  got  no  further  than  "Onions"  (John 
Inions)  at  Brunswick.  On  the  twentieth  he  reached  Elizabeth- 
town  and  lodged  there  with  Colonel  Richard  Townley.  Some 
travelers  also  mention  stopping  at  the  house  of  Henry  Green- 
land who  lived  the  opposite  side  of  Raritan  to  John  Inions.  At 
Woodbridge,  Richard  Powell  kept  an  inn  in  1689,  and  Benjamin 
Donham  by  1706  or  before.  As  for  occupation,  the  early  tavern 
holders  perhaps  did  not  make  a  living  from  tavern  keeping 
alone.  Many  of  them  like  Gilbert  Wheeler,  and  John  Inions, 
were  occupied  with  a  ferry  and  a  large  plantation.  Benjamin 
Acton  of  Salem  called  himself  a  weaver  by  occupation,  and  he 
also  acted  as  a  surveyor  for  the  Penn  interests,  making  the 
greater  part  of  their  surveys  in  Salem  bounds.  Henry  Grubb  was 
a  butcher  and  market-keeper.  As  late  as  1783  Dr.  Johann  Schoepf 
a  surgeon  of  the  Ansbach  troops  recites  an  experience  which 
shows  the  versatile  accomplishments  of  some  of  those  old  inn- 
holders. 


THE    OLD    YORK    KOAI)  703 

"From  Boundbrook  we  came  to  a  mountain  where  Washington's 
Army  encamped  in  1779  and  farther  through  an  extremely  well  culti- 
vated region  over  the  Millstone  river.  In  the  Raritan  a  law  compels 
millers  to  leave  a  40-yard  passage  way  over  the  dams  during  the  run- 
ning of  shad,  which  formerly  came  up  Raritan  in  numberless  schools. 
In  the  tavern  at  Black  Horse  we  found  quarters  for  the  night.  The 
landlord  told  us  he  was  a  weaver,  a  shoemaker,  a  farmer,  a  farrier,  a 
gardener,  and  when  it  can't  be  helped,  a  soldier.  'I  bake  my  bread, 
brew  my  beer,  kill  mj'  pigs,  grind  my  axe  and  knives.  I  build  those 
stalls  and  that  shed  and  I  am  barber  leach  and  doctor.'  The  man  was 
everything  at  no  expense  of  a  license."  (Schoepfs'  Travels  in  the  Con- 
federation.) 

In  another  part  of  his  journal  he  makes  reference  to  the  curios- 
ity of  some  of  the  early  innholders,  as  does  likewise  Andrew 
Barnaby  writing  in  1759.  "At  the  inn  at  Brunswick,"  writes 
Schoepf,  "nothing  was  to  be  had  till  it  was  known  where  we  came 
from  and  wither  we  were  bound.  I  asked  for  a  room  and  the 
woman  of  the  house  bade  me  in  a  most  indifferent  manner  'to 
be  patient',"  and  further,  "Six  miles  from  Princetown  we  came 
at  JNIaidenhead  ( Lawrenceville)  of  five  or  six  houses.  After 
sunset  we  arrived  at  Trenton.  There  the  landlord  permitted  us 
to  go  to  bed  unquestioned,  being  not  yet  done  with  several  other 
guests  arrived  shortly  before.  The  taverns  on  the  way  were  in 
other  respects  very  good,  clean,  well  supplied  and  served."  To 
illustrate  the  curiosity  of  the  innkeeper,  both  Andrew  Barnaby, 
1759,  and  Dr.  Schoepf,  1783,  tell  a  story  about  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin which  was  frequently  told  in  those  days.  Because  Franklin 
could  not  get  served  until  the  curiosity  of  all  concerned  was  fully 
satisfied,  it  was  his  custom  to  assemble  the  landlord,  mistress, 
sons,  daughters,  men-servants  and  maid-servants  and  thus  ad- 
dress them : 

■'Worthy  people,  I  am  Benjamin  Franklin  of  Philadelphia,  by  trade 
a  printer,  and  batchelor.  I  have  some  relatives  in  Boston  to  whom  I 
am  going  to  make  a  visit;  my  stay  will  be  short,  and  I  shall  then  re- 
turn and  follow  my  business  as  a  prudent  man  ought  to.  This  is  all  I 
know  of  mj'self  and  all  I  can  possibly  inform  you  of.  I  beg  therefore 
you  will  have  pity  on  me  and  my  horse  and  give  us  both  refreshment." 
(W.  H.  Benedict,  Proc.  N.  J.  Hist.  Soc,  Vol.  V.) 

Until  about  the  year  1750,  travel  by  stage  coach  was  not  a  very 
extensive  occupation.  Much  of  the  travel  was  done  by  horse 
l)ack,  and  goods  were  often  conveyed  in  the  suggan  saddle  or  by 


704  THE    OLD    ^OKK    KOAD 

pannier.  Wagons,  however,  were  advertised  "whenever  freight 
presents."  Thus  the  American  Weekly  Mercury  of  February  18- 
25,  1729,  offers : 

"The  Plantation  called  Redford's  Ferry  (South  Amboy)  over  against 
Amboy  is  to  be  lett,  with  a  good  dwelling  House,  Kitchen,  and  Stable, 
Scow  and  Canew.  Any  Person  that  has  a  mind  to  hire  it,  may  applv 
himself  to  Gabriel  Stelle,  who  lives  at  the  said  place  and  agree  to  Rea- 
sonable terms: 

N.B.  There  is  also  a  Stage  Waggon  kept  at  the  said  ferry  for  trans- 
porting of  Passengers  and  goods  from  thence  to  Burlington,  and  doth 
attend  whenever   Freight  presents." 

And  at  EHzabethtown,  the  other  terminus  of  the  road  across 
New  Jersey  at  about  this  time  we  find  an  offering  made  to  the 
male  sex  in  the  Nezv  York  Gazette  of  October  16,  1732 : 

"There  is  good  entertainment  for  Men  and  Horses  and  Horses  to  let 
at  all  times  by  William  Donaldson  at  the  Rose  and  Crown  in  Elizabeth 
Town,  New  Jersey." 

Acts  regulating  ordinary  or  taverns  passed  the  New  Jersey 
Assembly  in  1709  and  in  1719,  the  latter,  an  act  to  restrain 
tavern  keepers  and  retailers  of  strong  drink  from  crediting  any 
person  more  than  10  shillings.  Previous  to  this  time  in  1677  the 
East  Jersey  proprietors  authorized  "ordinary  keepers"  to  charge 
strong  liquors  by  the  gill  not  to  exceed  10  s.  8  d.  per  gallon ;  per 
quart  2  s.  6  d. ;  good  wine  7  s.  per  gallon ;  cider  4  d.  per  quart ; 
and,  meals  each  8  d. ;  oats  9  d.  per  day ;  pasture  by  week  in  sum- 
mer 1  s.  6  d. ;  and  in  winter  1  s.  8  d.  The  act  passed  March  15, 
1738-9,  provided  that  thereafter  licenses  should  not  be  issued  by 
the  justices,  but  by  the  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions:  Innkeepers 
were  prohibited  from  gaming  or  allowing  others  to  game.  They 
paid  6  shillings  or  more  for  their  license,  which  v.'as  good  for  one 
year,  and  the  clerks  of  the  court  furnished  the  constables  with 
lists  of  those  so  licensed.  The  constables  were  required  to  visit 
the  taverns  and  report  to  the  courts  and  were  further  empowered 
to  make  a  search  and  prosecute  oft'enders.  Any  tavern  keeper 
entertaining  or  harboring  an  apprentice,  white  servant,  Indian, 
mulatto  or  negro  servant  or  slave  was  liable  to  a  fine  of  20 
shillings  for  the  first  offense  and  40  shillings  for  the  second.  The 
Justices  of  the  Sessions  had  the  right  to  fix  the  prices  of  liquors, 
and  entertainment  for  man  and  horse.  They  were  not  to  trust, 
or  to  permit  persons  to  misspend  their  time  nor  to  take  a  bill  of 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  705 

liquors  sold  or  drank  in  excess  of  10  shillings.  Furthermore  they 
were  assessed  yearly  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  not  less  than  40 
shillings  or  more  than  3  pounds.  In  1751  another  act  was  passed 
prohibiting  the  sale  of  strong  liquor  to  servants,  negroes,  and  mu- 
latto slaves  and  to  prevent  their  meeting  in  large  companies,  from 
running  about  nights,  and  from  hunting  or  carrying  a  gun  on  the 
Lord's  day. 

Mails  of  that  early  period  were  carried  largely  by  boats  or  post- 
riders.  In  the  year  of  1709  an  act  passed  the  Assembly  for  the 
encouragement  of  postoffices.  Only  fragmentary  information  is 
given  as  to  who  carried  the  mails.  (See  Groivth  of  Our  Postal 
Facilities,  by  Wm.  H.  Benedict,  Proc.  N.  J.  Hist.  Soc,  Vol.  VII, 
No.  3,  p.  217.)  There  is  a  will  of  one  David  Bissett  of  Perth 
Amboy,  a  shoemaker,  dated  February,  1727,  who  in  a  codicil 
made  certain  provisions  "if  my  son  John  should  follow  my  Buse- 
ness  of  Riding  post."  In  1733  letters  were  left  at  the  house  of 
James  Nelson  in  New  Brunswick.  And  the  American  Weekly 
Mercury  of  September  5-12,  1734,  announcement  is  thus  made: 

"Public  notice  is  hereby  given  that  there  is  now  a  Post  Office  settled 
at  Trenton  at  the  house  of  Joseph  Reed  Esq.;  his  son  Andrew  Reed 
being  appointed  Post  Master  where  all  persons  may  have  their  letters 
if  directed  for  that  county:  also  where  they  may  put  in  their  letters  di- 
rected any  Parts  and  due  care  will  be  taken  of  them,  the  said  Andrew 
Reed  having  qualified  himself  for  that  office." 

And  this  office  served  Amwell  township  for  a  great  many  years. 
Up  to  the  year  1800  we  find  the  names  of  Amwell  residents  ad- 
vertised as  having  undelivered  letters  at  the  Trenton  office.  And 
in  the  very  early  days  the  posts  did  not  go  with  speed.  Their  ir- 
regularity is  noted  by  a  New  York  paper  in  1704  wherein  it  is 
announced  "Our  Philadelphia  Post  is  a  week  behind  and  not  yet 
com'd  in." 

Wagons  were  scarce.  The  tax  lists  show  very  few  vehicles. 
In  Philadelphia  in  1697  there  were  only  thirty  carts  and  other 
wheeled  vehicles.  In  1717  when  John  Holcombe  and  Samuel 
Green  made  a  list  of  the  property  of  John  Reading  they  listed 
one  Wagon  and  Cart,  valued  at  seven  pounds.  Mr.  Nelson  has 
referred  to  the  homemade  wagon  of  Simon  Van  Winkle  (1719) 
without  tires  as  being  one  of  the  early  carts  of  Pompton  Valley. 
(Proc.  N.  J.  Hist.  Soc.  Vol.  V,  p.  130.)     In  Bucks  county,  Thomas 


706  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

Canby,  Richard  Norton,  Joseph  Large,  Thomas  Gilbert,  and  per- 
haps a  few  more  had  wagons  before  1745.  John  Wells  was  the 
only  person  who  had  a  riding  chair.  From  then  on  to  1750  a  few 
two-horse  wagons  were  introduced.  The  inventory  of  property 
of  William  Logan  of  Readington,  N.  J.,  in  1747  lists  among 
other  items  one  "pleasure  slay."  Pennsylvania  developed  a  wagon 
about  that  time  known  as  the  "Conestoga"  wagon.  Its  bed  was 
curved  to  prevent  the  shifting  of  its  freight  over  the  hilly  roads. 
At  the  solicitation  of  General  Braddock,  Benjamin  Franklin  in 
1755  advertised  for  one  hundrded  and  fifty  wagons  to  assist 
Braddock  in  his  expedition  and  supplied  them  too  By  1761  pas- 
senger vehicles  began  to  make  their  appearance.  "Twenty-nine 
Philadelphians  were  the  proud  possessors  of  chairs,  chariots  or 
other  wheeled  vehicles  for  passenger  transport.  The  list  compiled 
at  the  time  included  the  names  of  the  proprietor  who  owned  one 
chariot,  the  widow  Francis,  David  Franks,  William  Logan, 
Samuel  Miffin,  Charles  Norris,  Isaac  Pemberton,  John  Ross,  a 
chaise  each,  (this  was  the  French  vehicle  that  the  new  England- 
ers  spelled  "shay").  There  was  in  the  city  one  Landau,  "capital- 
ized out  of  respect  to  the  vehicle,"  as  was  also  the  single  "4  Wheel 
Post  Chaise."  In  addition  to  the  vehicles  named  there  were 
others  of  minor  importance  which  compilor  said  were  beyond  his 
attempt  at  reckoning.  (Romance  of  Old  Phila.,  J.  T.  Farris,  p. 
249.)  By  1794  there  were  eight  hundred  and  six  two-  or  four- 
wheeled  coaches  in  Philadelphia  county.  (Old  Roads  Out  of 
Philadelphia,  J.  T.  Farris,  p.  24.)  In  the  Amwell  tax  hst  of 
1790,  Jasper  Smith  paid  a  tax  for  one  phaeton.  Tired  travelers 
in  the  early  days  arrived  at  the  taverns  after  a  racking  journey 
across  the  country.  The  seats  had  no  back,  the  wagons  had  no 
springs  before  1789.  Often  they  had  no  covering,  the  roads  were 
rough,  the  harness  broke,  and  there  were  other  aggravating  de- 
lays and  exposures,  which  took  the  pleasure  out  of  traveling.  Dr. 
Schoepf  thus  describes  the  New  York-Philadelphia  coach  in  1783, 
when  travel  was  resumed  after  the  Revolution. 

"A  diligence  known  as  the  Flying  Machine  makes  daily  trips  between 
Philadelphia  and  New  York,  covering  the  distance  of  90  miles  in  one 
day,  even  in  the  hottest  weather,  but  at  the  expense  of  the  horses, 
only  three  times  changed  in  the  journey.  Thus  the  last  trip  two  horses 
died  in  harness,  and  four  others  were  jaded.  These  flying  machines  are 
in  reality  only  large  wooden  carts  with  tops,  light  to  be  sure,  but  neither 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  707 

convenient  nor  of  neat  appearance.  They  carry  from  ten  to  twelve 
passengers,  are  drawn  by  four  horses  only,  go  very  fast.  The  charge 
for  the  journey  is  5-6  Spanish  dollars  the  passenger.  (Travels  in  the 
Confederation.) 

Jansen  writing  of  his  trip  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York  as 
late  ill  1806  in  his  book  entitled  The  Stranger  in  Auicrica,  thus 
describes  the  coach : 

"The  vehicle,  the  American  State  Coach,  which  is  of  like  construc- 
tion throughout  the  country,  is  calculated  to  hold  twelve  persons,  who 
sit  on  benches  placed  across  with  their  faces  toward  the  horses.  The 
front  seats  holds  three  one  of  whom  is  the  driver.  There  are  no  doors 
at  the  sides,  the  passengers  get  in  over  the  front  wheels.  The  first 
get  seats  behind  the  rest,  the  most  esteemed  seat  because  you  can  rest 
3'our  shaken  frame  against  the  back  part  of  the  wagon.  Women  are 
generally  indulged  with  it,  and  it  is  laughable  to  see  them  crawling  to 
this  seat.  If  they  have  to  be  late  they  have  to  straddle  over  the  men 
seated  further  in  front."      (Stage   Coach-Tavern   Days,   Earle.) 

But  the  greatest  trade  of  the  tavern  came  from  the  many 
wagons  engaged  in  transporting  raw  material  and  supplies  to 
the  forge,  the  mill,  the  market,  or  the  city.  By  the  year  1760  be- 
tween eight  and  nine  thousand  wagons  were  engaged  hauling  sup- 
plies of  various  kinds  to  Philadelphia.  Taverns  began  to  dot 
the  roadsides,  some  of  them  with  accommodation  for  one  hundred 
or  more  horses,  and  in  the  larger  settlements  and  cross  roads 
more  than  one  tavern  keeper  made  a  living. 

The  taverns  of  Philadelphia  date  from  its  earliest  times,  the 
Blue  Anchor  tavern  and  Penny  Pot  tavern  being  the  oldest  of 
these.  But  there  were  innumerable  others  taking  their  names 
from  sign  boards  as  "The  Wounded  Tar,"  "The  Top  Gallant," 
"The  Jolly  Sailors,"  "The  Two  Sloops,"  "The  Boatswain  and 
Call,"  all  of  which,  as  may  be  inferred,  catered  to  the  entertain- 
ment of  sailors.  "The  Jolly  Post  Boy,"  and  other  signs  of  this 
character  catered  to  the  post.  Other  signs  catered  to  the  yeo- 
man. One  sign  in  an  alley  running  from  Spruce  to  Lock  street 
was  called  "A  Man  Full  of  Trouble."  It  bore  a  picture  of  a  man 
on  whose  arm  a  woman  was  leaning,  and  a  monkey  was  perched 
on  his  shoulder,  and  a  bird,  apparently  a  parrot  stood  on  his 
hand.  The  woman  carried  a  hat  box,  on  the  top  of  which  set  a 
cat.  It  is  hard  to  understand  what  there  was  in  this  sign  to  lure 
a  man  into  the  tavern.      Signboards  belong  to  the   days   w'hen 


708  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

servants  and  others  could  not  read  and  needed  something  more 
illustrative  than  letters  which  to  the  untutored  were  as  unintel- 
ligible as  hieroglyphics.  It  has  been  suggested  by  someone  that 
a  modern  signboard  suggesting  an  idea  of  wine,  women  and  song 
might  consist  of  a  quart  bottle  of  wood  alcohol,  a  trained  nurse 
and  the  hymn  "Nearer,  My  God,  to  Thee." 

Starting  our  trip  at  Front  street  at  the  corner  of  Xorris  alley, 
we  may  course  along  the  Old  York  road,  taking  note  of  some  of 
the  taverns  that  existed  in  1769.  When  the  first  survey  was  made 
in  1711  the  York  road  was  brought  into  the  city  at  Fourth 
street,  but  this  was  promptly  changed  the  following  year  and  the 
road  took  the  course  of  the  old  road  to  North  \\'ales  through 
Germantown  from  the  division  of  old  Front  street  into  the  Frank- 
fort and  Germantown  road.  To  the  north  of  the  lane  was  the 
old  slate  roof  house  built  by  Samuel  Carpenter  before  1700, 
occupied  by  \Mlliam  Penn  about  that  date.  Later  occupied  by 
James  Logan,  W^illiam  Trent  and  Isaac  Norris.  Norris  pur- 
chased it  in  1709  and  continued  to  reside  there  until  1717  when 
he  removed  to  Fairhill.  In  1764,  just  before  the  stage  coaches 
began  their  operation,  the  house  was  leased  to  Mrs.  Graydon  and 
became  a  fashionable  boarding  house.  Daniel  Pegg's  porch  may 
have  been  at  Pegg  street,  a  little  street  not  far  south  of  Noble 
street.  The  Sign  of  the  Jolly  Post  Boy  was  an  inn  located  not 
for  from  the  junction  of  the  York  road  or  Germantown  road  and 
the  Frankford  or  Bristol  road.  This  was  the  house  of  William 
Coates  located  at  the  southwest  corner  of  Green  and  Front 
streets.  It  had  been  purchased  from  the  Coates  family  by  Gen- 
eral Worrell  and  as  a  noted  inn  was  offered  for  sale  in  the  Phila- 
delphia Chronical  of  March  21,  1758.  The  "Governors  Mill," 
so  called,  stood  near  the  present  Second  street  and  between  the 
present  Girard  avenue  and  Canal  street.  It  was  built  in  1701  and 
burned  down  in  1740.  About  1760  it  became  the  Globe  mill  for 
the  manufacture  of  mustard  and  chocolate  and  thus  it  was  en- 
gaged when  the  stage  coaches  began  their  operation  in  1769. 
On  Sixth  street,  across  from  Germantown  avenue,  was  located 
the  seat  of  Isaac  Norris  which  he  called  Fairhill.  He  had  re- 
moved there  in  1719.  It  has  a  famous  garden  and  when  Isaac 
the  elder  died  in  1735  it  passed  to  his  son  also  named  Isaac,  who 
died  in  1764.     Isaac's  daughter,  Mary,  married  John  Dickinson. 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  709 

The  house  was  abandoned  by  the  family  during  the  Revolution 
and  was  burned  by  the  British  November  1777.  It  was  rebuilt 
after  the  Revolution. 

The  Old  York  road  leaves  Germantown  avenue  to  course  on 
under  its  old  name  near  the  old  Rising  Sun  tavern.  That  tavern 
was  opened  by  Mary  Davis  in  1764  and  was  burned  by  the  British 
in  1777.  Several  other  inns  were  opened  later  at  that  point,  the 
trafiflc  coming  down  Germantown  road  from  the  Old  Reading 
road  and  the  road  from  Bethlehem. 

Not  far  from  the  Rising  Sun  for  nearly  a  mile  along  the  road 
were  the  extensive  grounds  of  Stenton.  The  original  estate  ex- 
tended from  the  east  side  of  Germantown  road  to  the  west  side 
of  the  Old  York  road.  Stenton  was  built  by  James  Logan  about 
1728.  He  calls  himself  "James  Logan  of  Stenton"  after  1732. 
The  mansion  stands  on  the  west  end  of  the  estate  near  the  Ger- 
mantown road.'  General  Howe  occupied  it  as  his  headquarters 
just  before  the  Battle  of  Germantown.  When  the  stage  coaches 
began  operation  in  1769  it  was  occupied  by  William  Logan  the 
eldest  son  of  James,  and  who  died  in  1776. 

After  passing  the  old  farm  of  Jan  Lukens  came  the  tavern  of 
Widow  Jenkins.  Sarah  Jenkins  tavern  in  Jenkins  town  was 
opened  about  1759,  and  was  later  called  "Barley  Sheaf"  from  its 
old  sign  board.  Not  far  from  that  point  was  the  old  Abington 
Meeting.  It  is  not  on  the  Old  York  road,  nor  does  it  face  it, 
but  it  was  so  much  the  life  of  the  road  and  vicinity  for  so  many 
years  that  one  can  hardly  afford  to  pass  the  district  without  noting 
it.  Not  much  further  on  was  the  sign  of  the  Square  and  Com- 
pass, conducted  by  Mary  Moore  in  1787.  This  is  the  third  tavern 
after  leaving  the  Germantown  road  run  by  a  woman.  Earlier 
licenses  were  granted  in  Abington  to  Thomas  Cooper  (1766), 
Joseph  \\'atkins  (1774),  Sarah  Jenkins  (1779).  Thomas  Dugan 
(1779),  John  Phipps  (1779),  Stephen  Meshon  and  Mary  Moore 
were  both  granted  licenses  in  1787.  At  Round  Meadow  now 
Willow  Grove  was  the  old  tavern  built  about  1732,  and  kept  by 
John  Paul  in  1768,  then  being  known  as  the  "Sign  of  the  Wagon." 
At  that  point  the  Easton  road  branched  off  toward  Doylestown. 
The  tavern  was  offered  for  sale  in  1768  by  John  Paul  as  having 
a  farm  of  one  hundred  and  two  acres  and  a  stable  to  accommo- 

T   It  is  still  standing-  and  is  owned  by  a  patriotic  society. 


710  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

date  one  hundred  horses.  This  gives  an  insight  into  the  amount 
of  traffic  that  passed  over  the  old  road  at  this  time.  Joseph  But- 
ler (1779)  and  William  Heaton  (1786)  later  kept  that  old  tavern, 
it  was  then  known  as  the  Red  Lion.  It  was  often  referred  to 
as  "the  best  hostelry  between  Rising  Run  and  Coryell's  Ferry." 
The  next  tavern  of  note  was  the  old  "Crooked  Billett'  located 
in  Hatboro.  That  tavern  had  existed  since  or  before  1752  and 
was  long  known  as  the  Crooked  Billet.  It  was  so  called  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Gazette  October  12.  1752.  John  Dawson  is  said  to 
have  kept  the  tavern  at  an  early  date.  His  name  is  on  the  More- 
land  tax  list  of  1734.  David  Reese  is  said  to  have  kept  the  tav- 
ern in  1759.  In  1766  it  was  kept  by  David  Lowborough.  Wash- 
ington stopped  there  in  1777  and  called  it  the  "Billet  Tavern,"  and 
here  he  paid  a  bill  of  dinner  for  his  staff  amounting  to  £20,  the 
bill  receipted  by  John  Tompkins  is  dated  August  10,  1777.  Tomp- 
kins kept  the  tavern  at  that  time.  In  Warminster  township  at 
the  intersection  of  the  Street  road  with  the  Old  York  road  is  a 
monument  erected  to  John  Fitch  who  resided  near  there  at  one 
time.  In  1785  he  built  a  steamboat  which  he  operated  on  a  pond 
near  Davisville,  Bucks  county,  and  in  1788  he  built  the  steamboat 
that  made  several  successful  trips  to  Philadelphia  and  Burlington. 
There  was  a  tavern  at  the  Cross  Roads  (Hartsville)  from  a 
very  early  date.  Thomas  Linter  petitioned  to  keep  a  public 
house  here  in  1730.  John  Baldwin  was  there  in  1744  and  James 
Vansant  in  1748.  In  1754  William  Barnhill  leased  the  tavern 
and  operated  it  under  the  license  transferred  from  his  predecessor 
but  when  he  made  application  for  a  license  at  the  May  Sessions, 
1755,  the  court  declined  to  give  him  a  "recommendation"  and  the 
tavern  was  without  license  for  several  months.  Several  numer- 
ously signed  petitions  were  presented  to  the  court  praying  for  the 
reopening  of  the  tavern.  One  was  signed  by  nearly  one  hundred 
persons  "resident  in  New  Jersey,  the  Forks  of  the  Delaware,  and 
beyond"  who  stated  they  had  been  entertained  at  that  hostelry  for 
many  years,  "it  being  the  end  of  their  first  day's  journey  out  of 
Philadelphia."  The  court  finally  granted  the  recommendation. 
Bradfords  little  road  book  of  1759  calls  this  point  "York  Road 
by  Griffiths."  Washington  in  his  correspondence,  1777  calls  the 
place  "the  Cross  Roads."     About   1780   Colonel  William  Hart 


THE    OLD    YORK    ROAD  711 

took  the  tavern  and  continued  to  operate  it  until  1817.  And  from 
his  tenure  here  came  the  name  Hartsville. 

Just  after  one  passes  the  Little  Neshaminy  is  the  old  Washing- 
ton headquarters,  built  about  1763.  On  the  wall  of  the  house 
is  a  tablet,  placed  by  the  Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  with 
the  inscription :  "In  this  house  Washington  had  his  headquar- 
ters from  August  10  to  August  23,  1777,  with  13,000  men  en- 
camped near.  Here  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette  first  joined  the 
army." 

James  Ratcliffe  was  proprietor  of  a  tavern  at  or  near  Jamison 
in  1749.  It  is  believed  he  operated  a  tavern  both  prior  and  after 
that  date  at  Bridge  Valley,  two  miles  further  up  the  road  where 
it  passes  the  main  branch  of  the  Neshaminy.  In  1755  John  Barn- 
hill,  the  great-great-grandfather  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  pur- 
chased a  tract  of  land  including  the  site  of  Jamison  tavern  and 
succeeded  David  Lindsey  as  the  proprietor  of  the  tavern  there. 
He  removed  to  Philadelphia  in  1761  and  became  an  innkeepei 
there  on  Second  street.  When  George  Hughes  applied  for 
a  license  for  the  tavern  at  Buckingham  in  1752  he  stated  that  the 
nearest  tavern  on  the  south  was  at  Neshaminy  bridge  and  the 
nearest  on  the  east  was  "Canby's  at  the  Fen-y.'"*  The  old  tav- 
ern at  Jamison  has  burned  down  though  part  of  its  walls  still 
stand.  The  old  tavern  at  l^ridge  Valley  is  still  standing  and  was 
remodeled  last  year  as  a  summer  home  of  a  Philadelphian.  Not 
far  from  this  Bridge  Valley  tavern  was  the  home  of  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  William  Baxter,  who  commanded  the  Bucks  county  Bat- 
talion of  the  Flying  Camp  at  the  battles  of  Long  Island  and  Fort 
Washington  in  1776,  and  was  killed  in  the  latter  battle.  The 
house  stands  but  a  short  distance  from  the  abutment  wall  of  the 
bridge.  At  Buckingham  is  the  famous  Jamison  tavern  of  1763. 
The  tavern  stood  on  property  once  owned  by  Thomas  Canby. 
Canby  sold  to  Samuel  Blaker  in  1747.  The  first  effort  to  obtain 
a  license  "where  one  part  of  Durham  road  crosses  York  road  that 
leads  from  Canby's  ferry  (New  Hope)  to  Philadelphia,  and  near 
the  road  that  leads  from  York  road  to  Butler's  mill  and  North 
Whales".  (The  latter  road  led  through  what  is  now  Doylestown.) 
This  petition  was  refused.  Henry  Jamison  purchased  the  land 
from  Samuel  Blaker  and  applied  to  the  court   for  a  license  in 

8   This  was  Benjamin  Canby'.s  at  Wells  Ferry   now   New  Koije. 


712  THE   OLD    ^'OKK    ROAD 

1763,  and  his  petition  was  allowed.  During  Revolutionary  time 
it  was  known  as  Bogart's  Inn.  Bogart  married  Jamison's  widow 
and  fell  heir  to  the  task  of  host.  It  is  now  known  as  the  General 
Green  Inn. 

Not  far  from  the  old  inn  we  pass  the  estate  of  Col.  Henry  D. 
Paxson  now  known  as  Elm  Grove,  and  at  the  top  of  the  hill 
beyond  stands  Buckingham  Meeting  House.  The  first  Bucking- 
ham Meeting  was  commenced  in  1705  and  is  mentioned  as  one 
of  the  land-marks  in  laying  out  the  Old  York  road.  A  second 
was  built  in  1731.  This  was  destroyed  early  in  1768.  And  the 
present  meeting  was  built  to  take  its  place  and  finished  before  the 
close  of  the  year.  During  the  Revolutionary  war  it  was  used  as 
a  hospital  and  several  dead  were  buried  on  the  east  side  of  the 
old  road  as  it  then  coursed.  Passing  through  the  village  of 
Lahaska  we  come  next  to  the  Great  Spring,  a  wonderful  flow  of 
water,  and  further  on  the  old  home  of  Samuel  D.  Ingham,  a 
cabinet  officer  to  President  Jackson.  The  next  tavern  of  note  was 
the  Old  John  Coryell  tavern  at  the  ierry. 

After  crossing  the  river,  on  a  seventy-one  acre  tract,  was  the 
old  tavern  built  by  Emanuel  Coryell,  both  of  these  Coryell  taverns 
have  been  described  at  length  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  At  the 
west  end  of  the  village  of  Lambertville  stands  the  old  Holcomb 
house,  twice  used  by  Washington  as  his  headquarters,  once  in 
1777  and  again  in  1778.  In  a  house  on  Bridge  street,  near  the 
corner  of  Union,  James  W.  Marshall,  who  discovered  gold  in 
California,  passed  his  boyhood  days.  The  next  tavern  was  one 
of  the  oldest  and  most  historic  taverns  of  old  Amwell,  long  known 
as  Ringoes  tavern.  This  was  located  in  the  Field  three  thousand 
acre  tract,  not  far  from  the  old  Indian  plantation  of  Wisshel- 
amensy.  It  was  at  the  crossing  of  the  York  road  and  a  road 
leading  from  the  Falls  of  the  Delaware  (Trenton)  through  Pen- 
nington. The  earliest  tavern  keeper  there  w^as  Theophilus  Ketch- 
um,  who  bought  twenty-five  acres  August  25,  1726,  and  who 
died  early  in  1730  and  who  was  succeeded  by  Philip  Ringo. 
Ringo  kept  the  tavern  for  many  years,  and  was  succeeded  by  his 
son  and  grandson  both  named  John  Ringo.  In  1779  it  was  kept 
by  Henry  Mershon.  The  old  tavern  was  burned  down  in  1840. 
For  many  years  it  was  the  center  of  many  of  the  activities  of 
Amwell  township.     After  passing  the  tavern  at   Pleasant   Cor- 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  713 

ners,  where  the  present  road  turns  off  to  Flemington,  was  lo- 
cated the  old  Dutch  Church,  which  dates  to  1747  or  before  that 
date.  Across  from  the  church  are  two  gravestones  of  which  we 
may  pause  to  take  note.  One  is  a  large  gray  stone  standing  out 
prominently  over  the  wall  which  reads,  "In  Memory  of  Johann 
Peter  Rockefeller  who  came  from  Germany  about  1723,  Died 
1763.  He  gave  this  land  for  a  burial  place  for  his  family,  its 
descendants  and  his  neighbors.  This  monument  was  erected  in 
the  year  1906  by  John  Davidson  Rockerfeller,  a  direct  descend- 
ant." The  original  Rockefeller  farm  was  about  one  mile  west  of 
Rocktown,  or  several  miles  away,  and  when  Johann  Peter  died 
he  left  one-half  acre  on  this  farm  as  a  graveyard  for  his  family 
and  neighbors.  When  the  Rockefeller  Family  National  Associa- 
tion was  formed  the  location  of  his  farm  was  not  accurately 
known,  and  the  stone  is  therefore  incorrectly  located.  Several 
stones  give  hint  of  the  old  Dutch  settlers.  One  reads  "Hier  Ligt 
Johannes  Pambus  ist  gebohren  den  12  May  1720  gestoben  den 
1  Sepdemper  1757  \Ym.  Schulmeister  Vor  Lesser  clergemyne 
Dieser  Kirchen,  Amweyl."  A  schoolmaster,  probably  sexton,  and 
reader  of  the  old  Dutch  church. 

Further  on  down  the  road  toward  Reaville  is  the  site  of  the 
old  Amwell  First  Church  in  the  midst  of  the  graveyard  on  the 
left.  This  was  on  the  lands  of  Peter  Prall  whose  father,  Aaron, 
had  purchased  seven  hundred  and  fifty  acres  along  that  road  in 
1716.  Peter  gave  the  land  upon  which  the  old  church  was  lo- 
cated. It  was  the  first  Presbyterian  church  of  those  parts,  and 
was  attended  by  Governor  John  Reading,  who  upon  his  death 
1767,  presented  ten  pounds  to  purchase  a  silver  chalice.  He  is 
buried  in  the  old  graveyard,  and  a  monument  erected  by  some  of 
his  descendants  marks  the  site  of  his  grave.  John  Reading 
previously  attended  the  old  Dutch  Church  of  Readington,  where 
the  birth  of  most  of  his  children  was  recorded. 

At  Reaville  was  located  the  old  Manners  tavern.  John  Man- 
ners was  an  early  resident  of  Amwell,  being  one  of  its  first  as- 
sessors in  1729.  He  settled  in  Amwell  about  1718,  owning  about 
four  hundred  acres  in  1728.  Several  John  Manners  resided  here 
during  a  period  of  the  next  one  hundred  years.  \\^hen  Delaware 
and  Raritan  townships  were  erected  from  old  Amwell  in  1838, 
one  of  the  bounds  then  given  was  "thence  southwardly  along  the 


714  THE   OLD    YORK    ROAD 

middle  of  the  said  road  (from  Clover  hill)  to  said  Manners  tav- 
erns, now  called  Greenville,  where  it  intersects  the  Old  York 
road  leading  to  the  village  of  Ringoes." 

The  next  tavern  along  the  road  was  at  or  near  Three  Bridges 
in  Readington  township.  It  was  located  on  a  tract  of  two  hun- 
dred acres  sold  by  Joseph  Kirkbride  about  1712  to  Jerome  Van 
Est  and  Daniel  Seabring  lying  partly  along  Campbell's  Brook. 
Daniel  Seabring  was  a  member  of  the  old  Readington  Dutch 
Church  from  its  organization  in  1719.  He  was  a  commissioner 
of  highways  in  1726.  The  advertisement  of  the  Old  York  road 
stage  coaches,  published  in  the  New  York  papers,  state  that  they 
will  exchange  passengers  at  the  South  Branch  of  Raritan  at  the 
house  of  Obadiah  Taylor,  formerly  kept  by  Daniel  Seaburn 
(Seabring). 

Possibly  John  Biggs  kept  a  tavern  at  the  present  site  of  Cen- 
terville,  at  Campbell's  Brook  now  Pleasant  Run,  between  the 
north  and  south  branches.  Biggs  had  located  there  by  1720  and 
his  name  frequently  appears  in  the  old  township  records,  he 
built  a  substantial  house  there  about  1745.  After  the  Revolution 
the  stages  altered  their  route  so  that  they  changed  passengers  and 
stopped  over  night  at  Centerville  and  from  Three  Bridges,  pro- 
ceeded through  Flemington,  no  longer  passing  along  the  road  to 
Reaville. 

The  Raritan  river  was  passed  at  what  is  now  Milltown.  In 
1748  reference  is  made  to  "to  ye  old  road  to  ye  mills"  *  *  ^  * 
"and  so  across  ye  main  river  to  ye  great  road."  When  the  Law- 
rence line  was  run  in  1743  it  brought  all  the  Raritan  district  al- 
most to  the  site  of  Somerville  into  Hunterdon  county.  When 
the  old  road  was  resurveyed  in  1764  reference  is  made  to  "Fritt's 
Hotel,"  between  the  beginning  of  Philip  Tunison's  line  and  the 
line  of  Derrick  Van  Vetchen.  There,  on  the  site  of  Somerville, 
town  meetings  were  "held  at  the  house  of  Cornelius  Tunison, 
innkeeper"  on  the  "Great  Road"  .in  1770  and  were  continued  by 
him  until  1798.  After  Colonel  Simcoe  burned  the  old  court- 
house on  the  Millstone  in  1779  an  act  passed  the  legislature  the 
following  year  to  build  a  new  one  at  Somerville.  George  Mid- 
dagh  kept  a  tavern  on  the  Graham  tract  from  1750  to  1756  where 
the  town  meetings  were  held.     Later  they  were  held  at  the  tav- 


THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD  715 

ern  of  Cornelius  Bogert,  1756  to  1764,  who  sold  to  John  Arrison 
and  the  town  meetings  were  held  there  until  1769. 

There  was  a  tavern  at  Bound  Brook  antedating  the  Revolution. 
It  stood  on  the  site  of  the  house  of  George  Cossart  who  was  one 
of  the  earlier  purchasers  in  1700,  of  the  site  where  this  village 
stands.  The  first  house  built  at  Bound  Brook  was  said  to  have 
been  built  by  Captain  Thomas  Codrington  about  1683. 

After  leaving  Bound  Brook  the  old  stages  directed  their 
course  toward  Elizabethtown.  What  course  they  took  from  that 
point  is  now  difficult  to  say.  They  probably  passed  through 
Ouibbletown  (now  New  Alarket),  through  what  is  now  known 
as  Avon  Park,  Alton  and  Willow  Grove,  part  of  which  road  is 
still  known  as  the  Old  Raritan  road.  That  route  would  have 
taken  them  along  the  region  of  the  earliest  settlements  shown  on 
Reed's  map,  and  previously  referred  to  as  the  settlements  of 
Gordon,  Barclay,  the  Fullertons  and  others.  Fadden's  map  of 
1777  shows  a  road  to  Elizabethtown  taking  this  general  course, 
with  Letle's  tavern  noted  as  on  that  road.  During  the  Revolu- 
tion there  was  a  guard  consisting  of  two  officers  and  forty-two 
men  stationed  at  Quibbletown,  and  Washington,  June  25,  1777, 
dated  some  of  his  correspondence  from  "Camp  at  Ouibbletown." 
John  Hill's  map  of  Elizabethtown  1777,  shows  only  three  roads 
passing  out,  one  to  Newark,  one  to  Connecticut  farms  and  one 
to  Rahway. 

Near  Elizabethtown  a  tavern  of  great  note  was  the  old  "Wheat 
Sheaf  Inn."  This  was  a  famous  old  stage-house  and  inn  built 
about  1730  (located  about  two  and  a  half  miles  from  Elizabeth- 
town  on  the  Old  Philadelphia  Post  road  (now  Rahway  avenue). 
The  first  landlord  was  Henry  Broadwell  who  conducted  it  as  "The 
George  Tavern,"  for  some  years  prior  to  1764.  At  that  date 
Broadwell  rented  the  inn  to  Sovereign  Sybrant  who  named  it  the 
"Sign  of  the  Roebuck."  It  was  named  the  Wheat  Sheaf  by 
Wilkinson  its  next  landlord.  A  succession  of  owners  carried  on 
a  business  there.    It  was  torn  down  in  1919. 

From  that  point  on  to  Newark  the  way  grew  more  and  more 
busy  with  traffic.  After  the  Revolution,  Plainfield  began  to 
grow,  and  the  stages  passed  through  that  town  developing  the 
taverns  there.  From  Elizabethtown  to  Newark  the  stages  had 
company  of  the  stages  traveling  the  more  southern  Jersey  route. 


716  THE   OLD   YORK    ROAD 

and  as  illustrating  the  extent  of  this  travel  by  1830,  the  follow- 
ing is  quoted  from  Gordon's  Ga:;citcr  of  New  Jersey  published 
in  1834: 

"This  place  (Kingstown,  N.  J.)  was  once  remarkable  for  the  num- 
ber of  stages  that  passed  through  it,  for  New  York  and  Philadelphia, 
the  passengers  of  which,  commonly  dined  at  the  hotel  of  Mr.  P.  With- 
ington.  Before  the  completion  of  the  Bordentown  Amboy  railroad, 
49  stages  loaded  with  passengers,  between  the  two  cities  have  halted 
here  at  the  same  time;  when  more  than  400  harnessed  horses  were 
seen  standing  in  front  of  the  inn." 

The  railroad  over  from  Bordentown  to  South  Amboy  was 
opened  February,  1833.  Until  September  of  that  year  the  car- 
riages were  drawn  by  horses,  and  at  that  time  steam  locomatives 
were  applied  to  one  of  the  three  lines  that  operated  over  this 
route. 

With  the  invention  of  railroads,  taverns  began  their  decline, 
though  the  comparative  cleanliness  and  convenience  of  modern 
travel  was  a  long  time  coming  to  pass. 


The  Samuel  Hart  Collection  of  Manuscripts,  1777-1877. 

BY   WARREN   S.    ELY,   DOYLESTOWN,    PA. 
(Xeshaniiny    Presbyterian    Church,    Hartsville,    June    7,    1924.) 

SOMETIME  ago  there  was  presented  to  our  Society,  by  the 
the  family  of  the  late  Samuel  Hart  of  Doylestown  Town- 
ship, a  basket  full  of  old  papers,  consisting  of  letters  and 
business  papers  of  the  family,  covering  three  generations,  and 
practically  a  century  of  time,  numbering  1,500  to  2,000  pieces  of 
manuscript,  which  has  suggested  making  a  record  of  the  follow- 
ing historical  notes,  largely  gathered  from  them. 

Samuel  Hart,  Sr.,  was  born  Nov.  1,  1783,  and  died  Nov.  25, 
1863.  He  was  one  of  the  most  active  business  and  professional 
men  of  his  time,  for  a  full  half  century  filling  numerous  public 
positions  and  keeping  in  active  touch  with  all  the  afifairs  of  his 
time.  His  father  died  when  he  was  but  fourteen  years  of  age. 
and  Col.  Robert  LoUer  of  Hatboro,  a  noted  surveyor,  justice,  and 
philanthropist,  was  appointed  his  guardian,  and  virtually  adopted 
him,  taking  him  to  his  home  and  superintending  his  education, 
teaching  him  the  art  of  surveying  and  conveyancing  and  making 
him  his  assistant  along  these  lines. 

Col.  Robert  Loller  was  himself  a  remarkable  man.  He  was 
born  in  the  year  1740,  and  like  his  ward  and  protege,  Samuel 
Hart,  was  left  an  orphan  when  young,  and  spent  the  later  years 
of  his  boyhood  in  the  home  of  an  uncle,  Alexander  Foreman,  of 
Montgomery  County.  He  acquired  a  good  education  and  was  for 
many  years  a  prominent  surveyor  and  justice  of  the  peace.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  active  patriots  in  the  struggle  for  National 
Independence,  and  his  Commission  as  Lieutenant  Colonel  of  the 
Fourth  Battalion.  Philadelphia  County  Militia,  as  well  as  num- 
erous other  papers  pertaining  to  his  service,  are  among  the  Hart 
papers.  He  was  paymaster  of  Pennsylvania  Militia,  and  one  of 
the  Commissioners  appointed  by  the  Council  of  Safety  to  seize 
the  effects  of  men  "who  had  absconded  from  their  homes  and 
families  and  entered  the  service  of  the  British  Army,"  and  also 
of  those  detected  in  carrying  provisions  to  the  British  Army  in 
Philadelphia.    Among  the  Hart  papers  are  also  his  reports  as  pay- 


718  THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS 

master  and  numerous  lists  of  horses  and  wagons  seized  while 
carrying  produce  to  Philadelphia  and  of  goods  and  estates,  of 
those  rendering  aid  to  the  enemy  in  other  ways,  which  had  been 
confiscated  and  sold. 

With  the  organization  of  Montgomery  County  in  1784,  he  was 
commissioned  a  Justice  of  the  Courts,  and  also  Recorder  of 
Deeds  and  Register  of  Wills  of  the  new  county,  and  was  an  As- 
sociate Justice  of  the  County  Courts  at  the  time  of  his  decease 
October  1,  1808. 

A  number  of  neatly  executed  drafts  of  surveys  of  lands  in 
Bucks  and  Montgomery  Counties,  made  by  Col.  LoUer,  John 
Hart.  Samuel  Hart,  and  others,  numbering  in  all  about  50  pieces, 
are  found  in  the  Hart  collection,  as  well  as  papers  relating  to  the 
settlement  of  the  estates  of  Col.  Loller  and  his  wife,  Mary.  There 
are  also  two  lists  of  "Subscriptions  of  Inhabitants  of  Moreland 
toward  a  fund  to  relieve  the  sufferers  from  the  Plague  in  Phila- 
delphia 1797-8."  Loller  Academy  at  Hatboro  was  founded  and 
endowed  under  the  provisions  of  his  will.  He  was  a  subscriber 
for  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette  from  1784  until  his  death. 

Samuel  Hart  succeeded  to  the  business  of  his  guardian  and 
foster  father  at  his  death.  He  married  January  6,  1806,  his 
cousin  Mary  Hart,  daughter  of  Col.  William  and  Elizabeth 
(Means)  Hart,  of  Hartsville.  and  for  twenty  years  or  more  re- 
sided in  the  neighborhood  of  Hartsville,  where  he  was  a  Justice 
of  the  Peace  and  followed  the  business  of  surveying,  conveyancing 
and  settlement  of  estates.  He  was  a  member  of  Neshaminy  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  Warwick,  and  served  as  a  trustee  of  the 
church  from  1810  to  1823.  Some  of  his  accounts  as  trustee  and 
a  subscription  list  for  the  benefit  of  the  pastor  in  1816,  are 
among  the  collection.  His  wife  died  February  28,  1828,  and  a 
year  later  he  married  secondly  Amy  (Kinsey)  Mathews,  widow 
of  John  Mathews,  of  Wrightstown,  and  daughter  of  Benjamin 
Kinsey  of  Buckingham.  She  was  a  member  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  and  he  united  with  that  Societ}^  and  removed  to  Doyles- 
town  Township,  where  the  remainder  of  his  life  was  spent. 

Samuel  Hart,  Jr..  from  whom  this  collection  was  acquired,  was 
the  only  child  of  the  second  marriage.  Samuel  Hart,  Sr.,  M^as 
commissioned  Surveyor  for  Bucks  County  in  1809,  and  filled  that 
position  for  many  years.   The  original  commission  for  this  position 


THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS  719 

in  1809  and  1812.  those  for  Justice  of  the  Peace  in  1819,  for  War- 
wick and  Warminster,  for  Buckingham  and  Solebury  in  1833,  and 
for  Canal  Commissioner  in  1832,  are  among  the  collection.  He, 
however,  filled  the  position  of  Justice  of  the  Peace  and  that  of 
Associate  Justice  of  the  Court,  for  many  years,  after  these  dates. 
His  correspondence  with  men  of  prominence  was  exceedingly 
large,  and  he  settled  numerous  estates  and  did  an  immense  amount 
of  conveyancing.  His  knowledge  in  reference  to  these  matters  was 
well  known,  and  he  was  called  upon  to  settle  estates  far  from 
his  home  district.  He  was  named  as  one  of  the  executors  of  Col- 
onel William  Erwin,  of  Erwinna,  and  personally  conducted  the 
settlement  of  that  large  and  complicated  estate,  as  well  as  that 
of  Thomas  G.  Kennedy,  the  distinguished  son-in-law  of  Colonel 
Erwin.  There  are  hundreds  of  letters  from  members  of  the  Er- 
win and  Kennedy  families,  among  the  collections,  covering  a 
period  of  many  years,  one  of  which  refers  to  him  as  "the  oracle 
of  the  family,"  and  he  was  indeed  the  oracle  not  only  for  this 
family,  but  for  many  other  families,  and  individuals  on  business, 
professional  and  political  subjects. 

THOMAS  G.   KENNEDY. 

Thomas  G.  Kennedy  was  sheriff  of  Bucks  County  from  1816 
to  1820,  prothonotary  in  1808,  and  again  later  was  one  of  the 
candidates  of  the  administration  democrats  for  congress  in  1828, 
against  Samuel  D.  Ingham,  who  carried  the  county  by  500  votes. 
Member  of  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly  in  1809,  and  was  promi- 
nently identified  with  many  of  the  more  important  industries  of 
Bucks  County.^  He  was  superintendent  in  charge  of  the  con- 
struction of  the  Delaware  Division  of  the  Pennsylvania  Canal ; 
one  of  the  projectors  and  builders  of  the  Philadelphia  &  Trenton 
Railroad  in  1832-4,  the  first  railroad  across  Bucks  County,  and  the 
first  secretary  and  treasurer  of  the  company.  He  was  really  the 
main  sponsor  of  the  road.  Papers  among  the  Hart  Collection 
show  that  when  there  was  a  halt  in  the  affairs  of  the  company 
after  sufficient  stock  was  subscribed,  for  the  reason  that  some  of 
the  directors  held  more  stock  than  they  could  pay  for,  Mr.  Ken- 

1  On  a  fly  leaf  of  an  old  book  of  "Commentaries  on  English  Law"  in  the 
possession  of  the  Chapman  family,  is  written  in  his  well  known  hand,  "I  com- 
menced the  Study  of  Law  under  Abraham  Chapman,  Esq.,  the  12th  of  No- 
vember, 1808.     Thos.  G.  Kennedy.' 


720  THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS 

nedy  associating  himself  with  Richard  Morris,  agreed  to  build  the 
road,  taking  in  payment  therefor  the  surplus  stock  of  the  com- 
pany. The  original  agreement  of  Kennedy  and  Morris  with  the 
directors  of  the  railroad  company,  dated  December  5,  1832,  is 
among  the  collection.  His  monthly  reports  to  the  company,  show- 
ing the  progress  of  the  financing  and  building  of  the  road,  various 
contracts  for  bridges,  etc.,  numerous  letters  and  other  papers  re- 
lating thereto,  are  also  among  the  collection. 

Mr.  Kennedy  was  also  the  prime  mover  in  the  enterprise  to  es- 
tablish lock  navigation  in  the  Neshaminy  Creek  from  "Tideway 
to  Bridgetown,"  in  1831-2,  under  a  charter  granted  to  the 
"Neshaminy  Lock  Navigation  Company,"  by  the  Legislature  and 
Governor  Wolf  in  1814,  and  a  supplemental  Act  passed  January 
11,  1832.  The  Commissioners  named  in  the  original  act  and 
charter  were  John  Hulme,  Jonathan  Buckman,  Joseph  Richard- 
son, Jr.,  and  Anthony  Taylor.  The  latter  was  the  only  survivor 
of  the  Commissioners  in  1832,  and  it  was  on  his  petition  that  the 
Supplemental  Act  was  passed,  which  made  Anthony  Taylor. 
Thomas  G.  Kennedy,  Joseph  Jenks  and  Thomas  L.  Allen  com- 
missioners. Books  were  immediately  opened,  viz :  on  March 
3,  1832,  and  200  shares  were  subscribed  for,  and  the  first  install- 
ment of  five  dollars  per  share  paid  in.     The  subscribers  were: 

Shares 
Augustine  Mitchell  .  .  5 
John  Flowers  ...  5 
Joshua  Richardson  .  5 
Clayton  N.  Richardson  5 
John  Dorrance  ...  5 
Alexander  Boyd  .  .  10 
Joseph  M.  Downing  .  10 
Thomas  Wood  .      .      .10 

Total  shares  at  par  of  $50 200 

The  original  and  supplemental  acts  and  charter  are  in  the  Hart 
Collection.  The  company  was  to  have  the  right  to  acquire  by 
condemnation  such  property  as  was  needful  for  the  successful 
construction  and  operation  of  the  waterway,  and  also  to  acquire 
and  operate  mills  and  manufacturies  along  its  banks.  Several 
meetings   were   held,   stock   subscribed   and   transferred,   officers 


Shares 

Anthony   Taylor 

30 

Thomas  G.  Kennedy 

30 

Joseph  Jenks      . 

30 

Thomas  L.  Allen     . 

30 

George  Harrison     . 

5 

Isaac  Hulme      .      . 

5 

Isaac  Otis     .      .      . 

5  ■ 

Joshua  C.  Canby      . 

10 

THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS  721 

elected,  etc.,  but  the  building  of  the  Philadelphia  &:  Trenton  Rail- 
road seems  to  have  overshadowed  the  enterprise  and  caused  its 
abandonment. 

Thomas  G.  Kennedy,  (a  son  of  James  Kennedy,  who  died  at 
Newtown  January  7 ,  1824,  aged  82  years)  was  born  January  2. 
1783,  he  married  first  Violetta  Hicks,  who  was  drowned  in  New- 
town Creek  a  few  years  later  in  an  effort  to  rescue  her  only  child, 
who  had  fallen  into  the  creek.  He  married  second.  May  29,  1819, 
Juliana,  widow  of  William  L.  Dick,  and  daughter  of  Col.  William 
Erwin.  of  Erwinna.  She  died  May  28,  1823.  and  he  married 
third,  November  15.  1824,  her  sister,  Rachel  (widow  of  Charles 
Howell,  of  Trenton),  who  survived  him  many  years,  and  was 
the  mainstay  of  the  Erwin  family.  He  had  one  son  by  his  sec- 
ond wife,  Erwin  Kennedy,  and  by  the  third  wife,  a  daughter 
Achsah,  who  married  Samuel  C.  Robeson.  Thomas  G.  Kennedy 
was  living  at  Newtown  during  his  early  married  life.  After  his 
marriage  to  Mrs.  Dick,  he  lived  for  a  long  time  in  Erwinna,  and 
became  a  land  owner  there.  When  he  became  interested  in  the 
building  of  the  Philadelphia  &  Trenton  Railroad,  in  1832,  he  was 
living  in  Bristol,  where  he  owned  considerable  real  estate,  in- 
cluding the  Cross  Keys  Hotel.  His  son,  Erwin,  was  a  student 
at  Bristol  College,  and  bills  for  his  tuition  are  among  the  Hart 
Collection.  After  the  construction  of  the  railroad  was  begun, 
he  removed  to  Philadelphia,  and  resided  there  until  its  com- 
pletion, and  then  returned  to  Erwinna,  where  he  died  suddenly 
May  14,  1836,  in  his  53d  year. 

SAMUEL    HART. 

Judge,  Hart,  as  he  was  familiarly  addressed  in  the  numerous 
letters,  was  closely  associated  with  and  evidently  the  business  ad- 
viser of  Enos  Morris  of  Newtown,  a  member  of  the  Bucks 
County  Bar,  a  large  landholder  and  prominent  business  man  of 
the  county  from  1800  to  his  death  in  1832. 

Gen.  Francis  Murray  of  Newtown,  a  veteran  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  had  several  years  prior  to  his  death  acquired  a 
tract  of  4,000  acres  of  land  in  what  was  then  Northampton 
County,  but  became  successively  Wayne  and  Pike  Counties.  This 
tract  was  acquired  by  Enos  Morris  at  the  death  of  Gen.  Murray, 
and  held  by  him  until  near  the  time  of  his  death.     A  voluminous 


722  THE   SAMUEL   HART   COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS 

correspondence  with  his  agents  at  Stroudsburg  and  elsewhere  in 
reference  to  the  sale  of  portions  of  this  tract,  its  improvement, 
the  payment  of  taxes  thereon,  etc..  and  drafts  of  the  tract,  in  all 
100  pieces  of  manuscript,  are  among  the  Hart  Collection.  Judge 
Hart  was  administrator  of  Enos  Morris  estate  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  papers  relating  to  his  business  affairs  in  and  about  New- 
town, including  deeds,  leases,  etc.,  are  among  the  collection. 

Mr.  Hart  was  also  interested  in  claims  of  Revolutionary  vet- 
erans for  government  and  state  lands  and  a  number  of  printed 
"Regulations  for  Soldiers  Claiming  Military  Bounty  Lands"  are 
among  the  collection. 

There  is  also  a  draft  and  papers  showing  the  resurvey  and 
alteration  of  the  State  Road  at  Lumberville  laid  out  in  1830  from 
Easton  to  Willow  Grove,  and  numerous  miscellaneous  papers  re- 
lating to  his  business  as  justice  of  the  peace,  and  conveyancing, 
including  briefs  of  title,  and  correspondence  relating  thereto, 
covering  the  period  from  1800  to  1860.  Also  papers  relating  to 
the  erection  of  the  Friends  Meeting  House  in  Doylestown. 

POLITICAL   AND   HISTORICAL. 

Judge  Hart  was  evidently  not  much  of  a  politician,  as  the  term 
is  generally  defined,  but  was  quite  as  evidently  interested  in  poli- 
tics, county,  state  and  national,  during  the  whole  period  of  his 
active  life,  and  original  letters  from  Congressmen  and  other  of- 
ficials show  that  his  opinion  was  sought  and  prized  on  political 
questions  of  the  day.  He  was  nominally  a  Democrat  of  the  Old 
School,  but  vigorously  opposed  candidates  of  his  own  political 
faith  whom  he  did  not  deem  fit  for  the  office  to  which  they  aspired. 
When  William  Findley  was  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Gov- 
ernor in  1817,  Judge  Hart  probably  gave  him  nominal  support, 
though  not  pleased  with  his  selection.  After  his  election,  he  pre- 
pared the  following  "Draft  of  a  Letter  to  William  Finley." 

The  rights  of  a  citizen  of  Pennsylvania  are  mine  in  common  with  my 
fellow  citizens  and  in  that  capacity  I  beg  leave  respectfully  to  address 
the  Chief  Magistrate  of  this  Commonwealth — Without  having  anything 
in  view  for  myself  or  to  ask  for  my  friends,  my  object  is  purely  to  give 
correct  information  so  far  as  I  know,  of  the  general  opinion  of  the  re- 
publicans of  Bucks  County  relative  to  the  public  officers  in  the  county 
within  the  control  of  the  governor.  Mr.  Watts  and  Dubois  who  are 
constantly  in  the  habit  of  doing  business  in  my  presence  in  the  time  of 


THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS  723 

Court  are  so  far  as  I  am  capable  of  judging  good  officers — and  my  be- 
lief is  that,  deducting  those  who  want  one  or  the  other  of  their  situa- 
tions for  themselves  or  friends  a  very  large  majority  of  the  citizens  of 
Bucks   County  would  be  gratified  by  their  continuance  in  office. 

As  to  Mr.  Pugh  I  consider  myself  better  able  to  give  opinion,  with 
him  from  the  time  of  his  appointment  unto  the  present  day,  I  have  been 
in  the  habit  frequently  of  doing  business  in  his  office  and  from  every 
observation  made  by  me  (which  from  the  circumstances  in  which  we 
were  placed,  having  been  competitors  for  the  office  at  the  time  of  his 
appointment)  would  be  likely  to  be  as  strict  as  my  abilities  would  admit. 
I  believe  him  to  be  as  good  an  officer  as  any  other  man  in  the  County 
of  Bucks  would  make — I  know  of  none  that  in  my  opinion  would 
equal  him — and  further  I  believe  that  there  is  not  one  disinterested 
man  of  character  and  standing  in  the  County  who  would  wish  to  have 
him  removed  from  the  office  which  he  now  holds  and  much  better  than 
any  who  are  willing  to  accept  the  appointment  so  far  as  I  know — as 
to  the  other  two  I  do  not  know  of  any  applicants  equal  to  the  in- 
cumbents therefore  have  nothing  to  say  respecting  their  successors. 
So  far  as  relates  to  the  principle  of  rotation  of  officers  I  have  nothing 
to  say — if  however,  this  principle  shall  ])e  recognized  I  beg  leave  further 
to  state  T.  G.  K.-  is  in  my  opinion  as  well  qualified  to  perform  the 
duties  of  Prothonotary  as  anj^  other  man  in  the  county. 

When  Governor  Findley  was  a  candidate  for  reelection  in 
1820  Judge  Hart  bitterly  opposed  his  candidacy  as  is  shown  by 
the  following  letter  written  to  some  other  public  man  whose  name 
is  not  disclosed.  If  it  were  not  that  Samuel  D.  Ingham's  name  is 
mentioned  in  the  letter.  I  would  take  it  for  granted  that  the  letter 
was  addressed  to  him,  as  they  often  discussed  political  questions. 
The  letter  referred  to  is  as  follows: 

Dr.  Sir:  Jan.  2Sth,  1820. 

Your  friendly  communication  of  the  18th  was  received  this  day  and 
adds  one  more  to  the  many  obligations  I  feel  for  your  attention  and 
Politeness. 

Relations  to  most  of  the  great  questions  at  issue  before  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Nation  and  mentioned  in  yours  as  I  feel  myself  en- 
tirely unable  to  adopt  an  opinion,  on  these  subjects  I  must  trust  to  the 
wisdom  of  the  members  of  Government — in  whom  I  have  full  con- 
fidence, for  an  investigation  sufficient  to  enable  me  to  form  an  opinion 
satisfactory  to  myself  would  require  more  documents  than  I  possess 
and  more  time  than  I  can  spare — admitting  my  ability  as  sufficient. 

Notwithstanding  we  are  pleased  sometimes  to  be  noticed  by  the 
great  men  of  the  nation,  and  I  have  known  a  whole  company  con- 
founded by  an  account  delivered  second  hand  from  a  member  of  Con- 
gress when  the  relator  did  not  understand  all  his  friend  had  related  to 

2   Thomas  G.  Kennedy. 


724  THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS 

him,  it  serves  to  make  us  of  some  importance  and  may  be  of  advantage. 

On  "something  of  state  poHtics"  I  am  indebted  to  you,  when  that  debt 
is  discharged  I  am  willing  that  the  subject  so  far  as  relates  to  the  pres- 
ent administration  shall  remain  forever  without  a  name  between  you 
&  I — It  is  a  hard  task  to  commit  my  sentiments  on  this  point  to  paper, 
when  addressing  you,  for  I  am  not  disposed  to  believe  every  man  cor- 
rupt whose  sentiments  differ  from  my  own,  candor  however  obliges  me 
now  as  on  all  former  occasions  to  be  explicit. 

I  agree  with  you  in  believing  that  the  present  appearances  indicate 
the  probability  of  the  reelection  of  Wni.  Finley  as  Governor,  this  con- 
viction however  does  not  reconcile  me  to  the  measure,  my  heart  bleeds 
for  the  honor  of  Pennsjdvania.  Low  indeed  must  be  her  situation, 
when  a  man  notoriously  convicted  of  using  the  public  money  for  his 
own  private  purpose  and  his  Official  influence  in  creating  sinecures  for 
his  friends  (when  he  had  not  appointments  for  all)  shall  be  reelected 
for  her  chief  magistrate — at  the  time  of  his  election  I  believed  him 
weak  in  mind  and  too  much  incumbered  in  property  to  be  able  to  per- 
form the  duties  required  with  fidelity,  most  of  his  measures  which  have 
come  to  my  knowledge  since  have  tended  to  confirm  this  belief  and  to 
add  to  it  the  belief  of  wickedness,  or  coruption  if  you  please,  while  these 
convictions  remain  no  earthly  consideration  shall  tempt  me  to  be 
instrumental  in  detaining  him  in  his  ill  gotten  situation. 

As  to  the  hostility  of  Binns  being  favourable  to  him,  I  agree  with 
you,  &  altho  Air.  Ingham  took  much  pains  to  convince  me  that  he 
Binns  was  tolerable,  I  have  a  long  time  marked  him  as  a  villain,  great 
in  proportion  to  his  ability — this  notwithstanding  only  adds  another  to 
the  many  cases  we  have  both  seen,  where  we  are  more  injured  by 
officious  friends  than  open  enemies — I  abominate  those  editors  who  un- 
dertake to  dictate  to  the  people,  and  I  hope  to  see  the  time  when  they 
will  take  their  rank  as  disseminators  of  public  information,  instead  of 
directors  of  public  sentiment. 

If  Mr.  Finley  be  selected  by  the  Delegates  of  which  I  have  now 
scarcely  a  doubt  I  should  take  great  satisfaction  in  seeing  him  "hurled 
from  the  seat"  (which  in  my  opinion  he  has  disgraced)  by  an  abused 
and  indignant  People  and  then  I  hope  we  should  never  see  that  in- 
famous practice,  of  the  few  disposing  of  the  privilege  of  the  whole,  re- 
vived in  our  day — &  if  the  Democratic  party  in  Bucks  County  has  no 
other  way  of  regaining  their  ascendency  then  by  rallying  under  the  ban- 
ners of  Wm.  Findley  I  sincerely  hope  it  may  continue  to  "Languish" — I 
have  done — I  hope  no  expression  in  the  foregoing  may  be  construed 
as  a  reflection  on  you — be  assured  that  they  are  not  meant  as  such. 

Sincerely  yours, 

S.    HART. 

Gov.  Finley  was  defeated  for  reelection  in  1820  by  his  op- 
ponent of  1817  Joseph  Heister,  and  Sanuiel  D.  Ingham  became 
Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth  under  Heister. 


THE   SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS  725 

Fourteen  years  later  Robert  Ramsey  then  a  member  of  the 
23d  Congress  from  Bucks  County  wrote  the  following  letter  to 
Judge  Hart.  Mr.  Ramsey  was  also  a  representative  in  the  27th 
Congress,  and  a  member  of  Pennsylvania  Assembly  in  1829-31. 

Washington  Citv,  Jan.  15th,  1834. 
Sir: 

I  am  sick  of  party  spirit  such  as  exists  here  that  would  sacrifice  the 
Publick  good  at  its  unhallowed  shrine  and  the  communications  I  re- 
ceive from  politicians  in  Bucks  are  no  better,  and  I  hope  this  will 
apologize  for  my  asking  your  opinion,  and  that  of  the  Publick  as  far 
as  known  to  you  on  w^hat  I  begin  to  think  a  small  matter  the  restora- 
tion of  the  deposits  too  the  Bank  of  the  U.  States  but  here  it  is  treated 
as  if  the  salvation  of  the  Country  depended  on  it.  I  think  they  ought 
not  have  been  removed  from  it.  But  they  have  been  removed  and  the 
question  shall  they  be  restored  is  what  I  must  meet.  I  am  willing  to 
represent  my  constituents  on  this  and  all  other  questions  that  may 
come  before  the  house,  if  I  could  know  what  their  wishes  are.  I  know 
if  you  write  to  me  on  this  or  any  other  subject  it  will  be  in  sincerity 
and  truth  would  to  God  I  could  say  the  same  of  all  others  that  are 
writing  to  me. 

Yours  Truly 
To  Samuel  Hart,  Esq.  ROBERT  RAMSEY. 

The  following  Power  of  Attorney  of  the  heirs  of  Rebecca 
(Weir)  Simpson,  including  the  parents  of  Gen.  Ulyses  S.  Grant, 
to  Samuel  Hart,  to  collect  their  legacy,  under  the  will  of  Samuel 
Weir  and  a  letter  of  Jesse  R.  Grant,  the  father  of  the  General, 
which  accompanied  the  Power  of  Attorney,  are  among  the  Hart 
Collection.  Samuel  Weir,  the  father  of  Rebecca,  had  died  in 
New  Britain  Township  in  1811,  leaving  a  will,  by  which  he  de- 
vised to  his  son  James  Weir,  a  farm  in  New  Britain  Township 
for  life.  At  the  son's  death  it  was  to  be  sold,  and  the  proceeds 
divided  among  the  testator's  then  surviving  grandchildren.  James 
Weir,  the  son,  died  A,ugust  6,  1834.  at  the  age  of  78  years,  and 
the  money  adjudged  to  the  Simpson  heirs,  above  mentioned, 
amounted  to  about  $170  each.  Both  the  Power  of  Attorney  and 
letter  are  badly  weather-stained,  so  much  so,  as  to  make  them 
almost  illegible.     The  P'ower  of  Attorney  is  as  follows : 

Know  all  Men  by  these  Presents,  that  Whereas  Samuel  Weir  late  of 
Bucks  County,  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  did  in  his  life  time  will  by 
entailment  a  certain  piece  of  land  (to  wit)  about  one  hundred  and  forty 
acres  being  and  lying  in  said  county  of  Bucks  to  his  son  James  Weir 
which  after  the  death  of  the  said  James  was  by  provision  of  said  will 


726  THE    SAMUEL    HART   COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS 

to  be  sold  and  the  proceeds  thereof  to  be  equally  divided  among  the 
surviving  grandchildren  of  the  Said  Donor  having  been  legally  in- 
formed of  the  demise  of  the  first  donee  and  also  of  the  sale  of  the 
land  by  James  Finley  executor  of  said  will  Now  Know  Ye  that  we  the 
undersigned  legal  heirs  to  said  will  to  wit  James  Griffith  and  Mary  his 
wife,  late  Mary  Simpson  of  Clermant  County,  Ohio,  Samuel  Simpson 
and  Jesse  R.  Grant,  and  Hannah  his  wife,  late  Hannah  Simpson,  all  of 
Georgetown,  Brown  County,  Ohio,  have  and  by  these  presents  do  make 
ordain  constitute  and  appoint  Samuel  Hart  of  Doylestown,  Bucks 
County,  and  State  of  Pennsylvania,  our  true  and  lawful  attorney  for  us 
and  in  our  name  and  for  our  own  proper  use  and  benefit  to  ask  demand 
and  receive  of  James  Finley  executor  aforesaid  or  any  other  person  or 
persons  authorized  to  do  said  business  our  proportion  of  said  estate  and 
we  do  also  further  empower  our  said  attorney  to  do  and  perform  any 
and  every  other  necessary  act  touching  said  premises  as  legally  and 
lawfully  as  we  ourselves  could  do  if  personally  present. 

In  witness  whereof  we  have  hereunto  set  our  hands  and  seal.  Done 
at  Georgetown  this  ninth  day  of  June  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
thirty  fiive. 

Signed  and  sealed  in  James  Griffith  [seal] 

the  precense  of  Mary    Griffith  [seal] 

Robert  Hunt  Samuel  Simpson         [seai.] 

Michael   N.  Ammen  Jesse  R.   Grant  [seal] 

Hannah   Grant  [seal] 

It  is  certified  by  Alichael  N.  Ammen,  Mayor  of  Georgetown. 

The  following  letter  from  Jesse  R.  Grant,  father  of  Gen.  U.  S. 
Grant,  is  among  the  Hart  Collection : 

Georgetown,  Ohio,  June  26th,  1835. 
Samuel  Hart,  Esq., 
Dear  Sir: 
I  reed  a  letter  from  you  some  time  last  spring  informing  me  that  a 
small  legacy  was  ready  for  the  Heirs  of  Samuel  Weir  of  whom  my  wife 
is  one.  You  inform  me  that  you  would  act  as  an  agent  to  draw  the 
money  that  a  Power  of  Attorney  must  be  executed  and  acknowledged 
before  the  Mayor  of  the  Corporation  or  Chief  Magistrate  with  the  Pub- 
lic Seal  and  if  the  Mayor  has  no  public  seal  our  Justice  of  the  Peace 
are  all  upon  an  equable  line.  There  is  no  Chief  Magistrate,  neither 
have  they  a  public  seal  but  as  the  oldest  judge  is  legally  recognized  as 
the  chief  magistrate  of  the  Councill  I  had  an  acknowledgment  taken 
before  him  and  the  clerk's  seal  thereto  affixed  And  as  the  Court  was  in 
session  at  the  time  and  the  President  Judge  here  I  obtained  his  cer- 
tificate to  the  legality  of  the  other  proceeding.  A  Power  of  Attorney 
legally  drawn  and  executed  was  forwarded  by  Mr.  Wm.  Shepherd  a 
respectable  merchant  of  this  place  Certifying  but  was  rejected  for  the 


THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS  727 

reason  of  legality  of  the  acknowledgment  &  since  Mr.  Shepherd's  re- 
turn our  Corporation  have  procured  a  public  seal  for  the  Mayor's 
office  and  I  have  made  out  another  Power  of  Attorney  in  strict  ac- 
cordance with  the  letter  and  your  instructions.  This  I  have  for- 
warded to  you  and  hope  you  will  an  early  attention.     You   will   allow 

a    proportion    to   Hardware    Merchants    No.    188    Market    St.. 

Philadelphia,  on  the  receipt  of  Mr.  Shepherd,  and  take  their  receipt  for 
the  same  and  forward  it  to  me.  Unless  you  may  have  some  business 
in  the  city  you  may  probably  be  able  to  forward  it  by  Uncle  Benj. 
Hough  or  some  other  safe  correspondent.  As  we  already  incurred  a 
great  deal  of  expense  our  wish  is  to  avoid  any  more,  but  meet  all  in- 
cidental expense  out  of  the  money  before  you  pay  it  over.  Write  as 
soon  as  you  can  attend  to  the  business  and  give  me  the  particulars.  I 
formed  the  acquaintance  of  one  Esqr.  Shaw  of  your  place  about  this 
time  last  summer  during  our  passage  from  Doylestown  to  Bristol,  pre- 
sent him  with  our  respects  and  accept  the  same  yourself. 

JESSE  R.  GRANT. 
Samuel  Hart,  Esq.,   Doylestown. 

N.  B.  Upon  a  consultation  with  Air.  Shepherd  I  will  change  my  in- 
structions on  the  subject  of  paying  the  money  in  Philada.  You  may 
procure  a  draft  on  any  one  of  the  banks  in  Cincinnati  for  the  amt.  and 
forw^ard  it  to  me  by  mail.  Air.  Shepherd  informs  me  that  the  U.  S. 
l)ank  will  furnish  a  draft  at  >4  or  Vz  per  cent.  Have  the  draft  made 
payable  to  me  individually,  it  will  save  trouble  in  having  it  endorsed  as 
the  parties   live  remote   from   each   other. 

^  _,  .  J.  R.  GRANT. 

Georgetown,  Ohio. 

June  27 

Superscription 

SAMUEL  HART,  Esqr. 

Doylestown,  Bucks   Co. 

Pa. 

The  following  letter  from  John  F.  Watson,  the  author  of 
Annals  of  PhiladclpJiia  and  Pcimsylz'auia,  i)i  the  Olden  Time, 
seemed  on  tirst  reading  to  throw  new  light  on  the  latter  days  and 
manner  of  death, of  Tamenend  (St.  Tammany),  the  noted  Indian 
Chieftain,  but  a  careful  examination  of  the  records  show  that 
Mr.  Watson  had  confounded  Tamenend  with  Moses  Tatamy,  a 
somewhat  erratic  and  Minor  Chief  of  the  Delawares,  who  was 
closely  associated  with  the  Moravians  at  Nazareth,  zvJiose  son 
W'illiam  Tatamy  was  shot  by  an  over  zealous  and  youthful  Ulster 
Scot  at  the  time  an  Indian  Treaty  was  being  arranged  for  at 
Easton  in  1757.    The  name  was  sometimes  spelled  "Tademe"  and 


728  THE    SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS 

the  euphonious  similarity  of  the  names  probably  led  Mr.  Watson 
astray.  Even  then  he  was  mistaken  about  Chief  Tatamy  being 
killed,  it  being  his  son  who  was  shot. 

Neither  have  we  been  able  to  find  anything  in  the  published 
works  of  Heckwelder  to  correspond  with  the  quotation  given  in 
the  letter  of  Mr.  Watson.  However,  there  were  a  few  "Essays" 
of  Heckwelder  published  by  the  American  Philosophical  Society 
prior  to  the  publication  of  the  second  edition  of  Watson  Annals 
by  that  Society,  which  we  have  not  been  able  to  consult.  Mr. 
Watson  did  not  publish  the  story  told  in  the  letter  in  his  second 
edition  of  the  Annals  published  in  1856.  This  would  indicate 
that  he  had  discovered  his  error.  Neither  did  it  appear  in  the 
first  edition  of  one  volume  in  1830. 

Letter  of  John  F.  Watson,  to  Samuel  Hart,  Esq.,  of  Doyles- 
town,  postmarked  Germantown,  June  7 : 

^      _.  Germantown,  June  6,  1836. 

Dr.  Sir: 

Thank  j-ou  for  your  kindness  &  attention  in  renumerating  the  extract 
from  your  early  Court  Records — I  take  this  occasion  to  tell  you  that 
the  James  Harrison  therein  mentioned  as  Justice  of  the  Orphans  Court 
(James  Harrison)  was  the  Agent  for  Wm.  Penn  &  dwelt  on  Penn's 
premises  at  Pennsbury  Manor — Phineas  Pemberton,  the  Clerk,  was 
the  Son  in  Law  of  Harrison.  Both  were  Friends  and  came  from  Eng- 
land together.     Harrison  was  also  a  puhlic  friend. 

The  present  James  Pemberton  Parke  of  Philada:  is  the  descendant 
of  Phineas  Pemberton  &  has  in  his  possession  a  quire  book  of  cap  paper 
covered  with  Buckskin,  of  Indian  tanning,  earliest  records  of  Bucks 
County — several  things  there  in  must  be  interesting  some  day  to  families 
now  of  your  County.  I  tell  the  fact  now  to  you,  to  keep  up  the  tra- 
dition, at  least,  of  such  a  fact.  It  gives  the  names  of  several  first  set- 
tlers &  of  all  their  household  &  from  whence,  &  by  what  vessels  & 
when  they  came — It  contains  also  several  proceedings  in  Courts,  of 
which  Pemberton  was  the  Clerk. 

If  you  should  ever  find  leisure,  &  inclination,  to  while  away  a  little 
time,  among  the  early  records  of  your  County,  I  should  like  you  to 
make  any  brief  extracts  of  any  such  things  as  you  may  think  surpris- 
ing, useful  or  agreeable  to  the  present  generation.  Whatever  may 
strike  you  as  strange  or  explanatory  of  difficult  points  in  our  historical 
facts,  may  be  a  good  rule  of  action. 

As  you  have  said,  on  the  tradition  of  the  neighborhood,  that  King 
Tamanend's  grave  lies  near  Dojdestown,  close  by  the  stream  of  the 
Neshaminj^  I  will  for  your  information,  add  some  facts  that  may  pos- 
sibly tend  to  elecit  some  further  facts  bearing  upon  the  case — We  know 
from  our  State  Records  that  Tamanend  must  have  had  his   residence 


THE   SAMUEL    HART    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS  729 

somewhere  near  that  stream.  l)ecause  as  Sovereign  of  the  same,  he 
makes  his  treaty  with  Wm.  Penn  on  the  23d  of  4  mo.  1683,  for  the 
lands  of  Tamanend  &  Metamaquan  "near  Neshemenah  Creek  and 
thence  to  Pennapecka" — the  present  Pennypack  Creek — If  Tamanen  is 
really  interred  at  the  place  alleged,  some  traditionary  facts  should  now 
be  gathered  (perhaps  through  inqueries  in  your  Doylestown  Gazette), 
whereby  it  may  be  attempted  to  be  reconciled  with  the  facts  we  now 
have  in  pi-int  from  Heckwelder.  He  says,  "This  person  was  for  many 
years  the  principal  chief  in  the  Forks  of  Delaware  &  resided  on  the 
Nazareth  tract,  as  the  town  called  Walamika,  when  the  Brethren  (the 
Moravians),  purchased  the  Manor.  He  was  friendly  to  all  white  peo- 
ple &  therefore  in  esteem  among  the  brethern,  who  invited  him  to  re- 
main as  long  as  he  choose  to  stay  on  the  land  and  be  their  neighbor  but 
such  was  the  wickedness  of  some  people  who  came  and  settled  in  those 
parts,  that  a  young  Irishman  with  a  gun  meeting  him  in  the  road, 
(Where?)  shot  him  dead." 

To  help  you  as  to  date,  you  may  bear  in  mind  that  Count  Zinzendorf 
as  head  of  the  Moravians,  came  to  this  Country  in  1741-2,  &  that  there 
were  many  Indian  aggressions  on  the  inhabitants  in  the  country  around 
Bethlehem,  Allentown  &  Nazareth,  at  the  time  of  Braddock's  defeat  in 
1755 — In  this  last  period,  Tamanen  may  have  been  killed  (very  old 
too),  by  mistake  or  for  revenge  upon  his  race. 

The  period  of  "St.  Tamany's"  death  seems  therefore  not  too  remote, 
even  now,  to  be  inquired  into  more  fully.  If  his  wife  or  any  of  his 
Ancestors,  had  been  before  buried,  at  his  present  alleged  resting  place, 
l)y  the  Spring,  &  near  to  Neshaminy  Creek,  it  may  have  furnished  a  rea- 
son for  bringing  his  body  to  that  place  to  have  been  there  interred. 
Your  tradition  as  it  generally  stands,  of  his  being  sick  there  first  & 
being  buried  there,  while  on  a  traveling  excursion  to  some  public  meet- 
ing or  treaty,  will  not  answer,  unless  made  to  reconcile  more  har- 
moniously with  the  well  ascertained  history  of  him,  as  given  by  Heck- 
welder— or  else  the  burial  must  be  set  to  some  other  Chief. 

I  have  written  out  these  leading  facts  intending,  that  if  they  should 
not  be  used  by  j^ou,  that  they  may  some  day,  be  put  into  the  hands  of 
some  gentleman  of  leisure,  who  may  posses  good  feelings  toward  topics 
of  this  kind.  They  are  wholly  intellectual  &  may  therefore  be  perused 
by  some  one  con  amore. 

You  were  so  kind  as  to  invite  me  to  visit  you — I  feel  as  if  I  had  good 
will  to  the  measure  (?),  at  some  future  day,  when  I  may  want  a  Sum- 
mer ride,  or  to  take  a  holiday  jaunt  somewhere.  Next  4  July,  for  in- 
stance— includg  Staty.  &  Sunday  the  2d  &  3d. — These  are  only  dream- 
ing ideas  now  vaguily  floating  in  the  mind — I  understand  you  have  an 
Indian  mound  called  "the  Giant's  Grave"  &  also  "an  Indian  Burying 
Ground"  on  a  High  Hill — I  might  choose  to  visit  such  remains  of 
olden  time. 

I  wish  that  if  they  have  real  bona  fide  chairs  of  Wm.  Penn  at  Attle- 


730  THE    SAMUEL    IIAKT    COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS 

boro  library,  that  they  would  give  them  to  "the   Penn  Association"  in 
Philada  for  preservation  in  the   Penna.   Library. 

Yrs.  with  respect  &  regard, 

JOHN    F.   WATSON. 

N.  B.  I  love  to  inspire  any  man  like  you  whose  business  leads  him 
to  see  &  examine  old  records,  to  be  my  disciple — If  you  meet  with  any 
traces  of  Indian  treaties  in  1681-3  in  Bucks  Co.  notice  them, — also  any 
date  when  Penn  is  present,  also  where  in  1682-3  as  his  presence  at 
given  places  is  much  wanted  to  elucidate  better  the  time  of  the  Treaty 
tree  at  Kensington. 

I  see  now,  that  he  was  at  your  Orphans  Court  on  4th  1st  mo.  1683. 
Be  sure  to  give  facts  if  you  find  any  trace  of  a  city  of  Philda  projected 
either  at  Penns  b'y-  or  at  Bristol— then  called  Buckingham. 

The  Indians  under  Isaac  Still  all  left  Bucks  Co.  in  1775  &  went  to  the 
"ffar  west"  at  Muckingum. 
Superscription, 

Colo.   Samuel   Hart, 
Surveyor  &c. 

near  Doylestown,  Bucks  Co. 
Written   on   outside   of   folded   letter   just   below   the   red   wafer   seal, 
Perhaps  the  Officers  would  trust  me  to  have  the  Records  out  a  day 
or  night  or  so,  to  read  them  at  a  house  nigh  by — for  a  thorough  reading." 

The  following  letter  of  Hon.  Samuel  D.  Ingham,  to  Judge 
Hart,  is  intensely  interesting  as  it  shows  his  interest  in  political 
matters,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  its  date  is  twenty  years 
after  his  retirement  from  active  participation  in  political  affairs, 
and  after,  as  stated  in  the  letter,  he  had  "utterly  eschewed  poli- 
tics." Mr.  Ingham,  as  above  stated  retired  from  active  partici- 
pation in  political  afifairs  in  1831  on  his  resignation  of  the  Office 
of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  President  Jackson,  but  long 
after  that  period  he  continued  to  write  occasionally  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  tariff,  being  an  ardent  protectionist. 

It  is  very  much  to  be  regretted  that  just  prior  to  his  removal  to 
Trenton  in  1849,  he  destroyed  all  his  correspondence.  His  son 
William  Armstrong  Ingham,  in  his  memorial  of  his  father,  writ- 
ten in  1910,  says  of  this  incident :'' 

Just  before  his  removal  he  spent  several  days  in  going  through  his 
accumulation  of  letters  and  destroying  almost  everything  of  interest. 
He  said  that  he  had  seen  so  much  mischief  caused  by  the  posthumous 
publication  of  private  letters,  that  he  could  not  allow  his  correspondence 
to  remain. 

This  idea  seems  highly  commendable,  but,  if  it  had  been  universally 

•■!   See  Vol.   IV,  page   19,  of  these  papers. 


THE   SAMUEL    HART   COLLECTION    OF    MANUSCRIPTS  731 

practiced,  where  would  be  the  materials  for  modern  history?  At  any 
rate,  I  have  always  regretted  that  I  was  not  present  at  this  holocaust: 
I  might  have  retrieved  some  invaluable  papers. 

We  agree  with  the  MemoriaHst.  that  it  was  extremely  un- 
fortunate that  Mr.  Ingham  took  this  view  in  reference  to  his  cor- 
respondence, as  it  evidently  covered  a  wide  range,  and  would 
have  given  us  a  vast  amount  of  information  on  local,  state,  and 
national  afifairs  and  incidents,  that  are  unobtainable. 

Copy  of  letter  of  Hon.  Samuel  D.  Ingham,  to  Samuel  Hart, 
Esq. : 

Trenton,  Feb.  25,  '51. 
My  Dear  Sjr: 

I  was  pleased  with  the  sight  of  your  well  known  autograph,  and 
glad  to  see  no  sign  of  tremulous  old  age,  a  property  that  mine  cannot 
claim.  I  am  only  busy  in  looking  over  some  men  that  I  have  employ'd 
to  fill  up  about  3  acres  of  brick  mud  holes  in  some  land  that  I  have 
bought  for  my  amusement — It  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to  have 
you  spend  some  days  with  me  in  common  about  old  fashioned  times, 
for  I  too  have  utterly  eschewed  politics,  satisfied  that  whether  for  good 
or  for  ill,  my  work  in  that  harness  is  done — I  cannot  follow  meteors,  & 
the  old  guides  &  landmarks  being  repudiated  by  this  wise  generation  I 
prefer  rather  to  stand  still,  than  grope  in  the  dark  with  the  chance  of 
falling  into  the  ditch. 

I  send  you  the  pamphlet — the  crisis  we  are  aproaching  rises  from 
the  over  valuation  of  gold  at  the  mint — It  is  reduced  in  value  in  the 
market  whenever  (?)  silver  apparently  rises  and  being  worth  more 
gold  than  it  is  valued  at — The  entire  coin  is  brought  up  to  mint  and 
export  then  is  no  danger  of  a  reduction  in  property,  but  we  are  on  the 
eve  of  a  shower  of  Shinplasters — If  Congress  will  do  what  I  have  pro- 
posed, 4  weeks'  work  at  the  mint  will  not  only  prevent  this,  but  they 
will  permanently  avert  such  a  contingency  in  future — my  paper  was 
prepared  &  published  by  request  of  some  gentlemen  of  the  bank  here, 
&  they  have  sent  a  copy  to  each  member  of  Congress  &  chief  officers 
in  the  Government  at  Washington,  but  they  will  do  nothing  this  ses- 
sion, be  it  so,  you  &  I  can  get  along  with  the  rest. 

Very  truly  Yours, 

S.    D.    INGHA^^r. 

Another  letter  among  the  collection  is  that  of  James  S.  Davies 
of  Moreland  to  Samuel  Hart  dated  6th  mo.  28th,  1823,  giving  a 
full  copy  of  a  letter  of  Elias  Hicks  to  \Mlliam  B.  Irish.  The 
latter  is  interesting  as  giving  first  hand  information  as  to  the 
somewhat  peculiar  religious  views  of  the  involuntary  founder  of 
the  Hicksite  branch  of  the  Society  of  Friends.     Elias  Hicks  al- 


732  THE  END  OF  OPEN   FIRE  COOKING  IN   BUCKS   COUNTY 

ways  disclaimed  any  intention  to  found  a  Sect  or  participation  in 
the  founding  of  the  branch  of  the  Sect  bearing  his  name,  it  being 
founded  on  views  expressed  by  him.  Though  not  an  autograph 
letter,  it  appears  to  contain  the  full  text  of  the  letter,  including 
the  signature. 

There  are  also  quite  a  collection  of  family  letters,  written  to 
Samuel  Hart  by  his  sons.  Those  from  his  son  Nathaniel  (the 
father  of  our  present  postmaster  at  Doylestown),  who  died  in 
Missouri  in  1862,  as  a  result  of  service  there,  are  of  interest  as 
showing  the  condition  of  public  sentiment  on  the  war  in  that  state. 


The  End  of  Open  Fire  Cooking  in  Bucks  County. 

BY  FRANK  K.  SWAIN,  DOYLESTOWN,  PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  11,  1924.) 

DURING  the  Civil  War  my  grandmother,  Rebecca  Swain, 
then  living  in  a  log  house  which  stood  on  the  right  side  of 
the  Swamp  road  just  beyond  the  second  right  road  and 
about  one  and  one-half  miles  south  of  Pools  Corner,  continued  to 
cook  in  the  open  fire  until  about  1866,  when,  on  the  death  of  her 
son,  my  uncle,  Luther  H.  Swain,  she  came  into  possession  of  a 
small  cast  iron  wood  burning  cook  stove  which  he  had  recently 
bought  with  other  things  after  his  engagement  to  be  married,  in 
order  to  set  up  housekeeping.  His  sudden  death  by  a  fall,  while 
working  as  a  carpenter  on  a  building  in  Philadelphia,  put  an  end 
to  all  this  and  brought  the  stove  into  my  grandmother's  possession. 
This  stove,  which  I  myself  saw  later,  was  about  three  feet  wide 
by  four  feet  long  or  deep  and  about  two  feet  six  inches  high, 
standing  on  four -adjustable  iron  legs,  which  often  came  out  in  a 
troublesome  manner.  The  firebox,  intended  only  for  wood  and 
never  for  coal,  was  encircled  on  the  bottom  and  front  by  three 
iron  grate  bars  and  the  front  of  the  fire  was  closed  with  two  cast 
iron  doors.  The  hearth,  about  three  inches  lower  than  the  fire 
box,  extended  forwards  about  eighteen  inches,  so  that  when  the 
fire  doors  were  open  the  extra  embers  could  be  raked  down  into  a 
dish-like  area.    The  top  of  the  hearth  was  covered  with  two  oval 


THE   END  OF  OPEN    FIRE   COOKING   IN    BUCKS   COUNTY  /  .^O 

lids  and  an  adjustable  central  rim.  The  lids  and  cross  piece,  or 
rim,  were  removed  when  cooking  was  to  be  done  directly  on  these 
hot  embers.  This  served  for  grilling  mackerel,  etc.  Other  cook- 
ing was  done  on  top  of  the  stove  with  the  lids  on,  and  at  other 
times  one  or  both  of  the  oven  lids  were  removed.  A  similar  lid 
arrangement  covered  the  top  of  the  firebox  and  a  third  lid  cov- 
ered the  posterior  oven  which  included  the  whole  interior  of  the 
stove,  back  of  and  under  the  firebox.  To  accommodate  a  long 
oval  washboiler,  the  oven  lids  and  the  center  X  piece  were  re- 
moved. The  oven  opened  on  either  side  with  two  doors,  one  a 
large  back  door,  the  other  a  small  door  opening  upon  the  shallow 
forward  extension  under  the  firebox,  thus  making  four  doors  in 
all  to  the  oven. 

My  grandmother  could  not  have  come  into  possession  of  this 
stove,  so  as  to  substitute  it  for  her  open  fire  cooking,  until  about 
1866  or  67,  when  my  uncle  died.  After  that  she  continued  to  use 
it  in  the  log  house  until  she  removed  to  another  house  in  Centre- 
ville.  I  saw  the  stove  in  use  by  her,  in  her  still  later  home  on 
Burnt-house  hill,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  north  on  the  turnpike, 
northwest  of  Centreville,  about  1885  to  1889.  She  was  then 
using  it  in  the  outkitchen,  and  had  a  coal-burning  stove  that  she 
used  in  the  house  kitchen,  and  which  was  allowed  to  go  out  in 
■  summertime,  in  order  to  keep  the  house  cooler,  and  also  because 
wood  was  plentiful,  and  coal  could  be  saved,  without  shifting 
stoves  from  one  kitchen  to  another,  and  then  in  winter  shifting 
them  back  again. 

This  old  stove  therefore  proves  that  the  earliest  type  of  the 
wood-burning  stoves  continued  in  use  from  the  time  of  the  aban- 
donment of  cooking  in  open  fires  until  1889.  My  grandmother 
also  used,  in  the  central  room  of  the  old  log  house,  a  very  large 
ten  plate  stove,  but  nevertheless  continued  to  cook  in  the  open 
fire,  and  used  the  latter  only  for  occasional  cooking,  and  for 
heating  the  remainder  of  the  log  house,  exclusive  of  the  kitchen. 
This  shows  that  the  ten  plate  stove  did  not  supersede  the  open 
fire  for  cooking  at  that  time,  and  that  the  latter  was  not  finally 
abandoned  until  the  advent  of  the  cooking  stove  to  which  I  have 
referred. 


Life  Near  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  in  1850. 

BY  EDWARD  BRADFORD  THOMAS,  GRAND  RAPIDS,  MICHIGAN. 

(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  11,  1924.) 
(Notes  in  unaltered  form  by  Dr.  Mercer  from  information  given  to 
him  by  Mr.  Thomas.) 

MR.  THOMx\S  describes  an  old  log  house  near  lone,  about 
thirty  miles  east  of  Grand  Rapids,  occupied  by  his  step- 
father. Clarion  Rice,  as  follows : 

Mr.  Thomas  lived  in  this  house  when  a  lad  of  about  seven  years. 

The  "shakes"  (shingles)  for  the  roof  were  three  feet  long  by 
eight  inches  wide,  and  one-half  inch  thick,  made  of  white  ash  and 
split  out  with  a  frow.  His  stepfather  built  the  house,  with  the 
help  of  neighbors  about  twenty  years  before  Mr.  Thomas  went 
out  there.  The  floor  of  this  log  house  was  of  native  earth,  except 
in  the  middle,  where  a  board  floor  covered  the  cellar,  a  pit  about 
five  feet  square.  The  garret  was  reached  by  an  open  staircase  built 
against  the  wall.  At  one  of  the  gable  ends  of  the  house  there  was 
a  window  in  the  board  wall.  The  boards  were  brought  from  a 
sawmill  near  by  run  with  water  power.  Five  or  six  of  the  chil- 
dren slept  on  the  garret  floor.  The  parents  slept  in  a  bed  in 
a  single  room  at  end,  partitioned  off  with  a  curtain.  Edward, 
then  a  lad,  slept  in  a  trundle  bed,  pushed  under  the  large  bed  in 
the  daytime.  A  window  was  cut  in  each  long  side  of  the  house, 
one  of  which  was  next  to  the  only  entrance  door.  This  door  opened 
inwardly,  made  of  boards  placed  vertically,  with  battens  nailed 
across  with  wrought  iron  nails  clinched.  The  hinge-hooks  were 
of  iron,  such  as  were  used  in  Bucks  county  barn  doors,  but  the 
hinge-straps  were  made  of  wood,  with  holes  to  fit  the  hooks. 
Latch  and  latch  staple  also  of  wood  with  a  latch  string  running 
through  hole  in  door,  drawn  in  at  night.  Fireplace  in  middle 
of  one  gable,  back  built  of  stones  set  flush  with  large  square 
opening.  Chimney  and  jambs  of  sticks  smeared  with  clay  inside 
of  the  house,  funneling  upwards  through  the  garret  floor  and 
roof.  Lintel  an  iron  bar.  Logs  in  wall  of  house  not  squared 
and  not  sawed  off  at  corners  where  they  projected  several  inches. 
Chinks  between  logs  filled  with  long  splints  of  wood  pegged  in 
and  then  smeared  with  clav.     Often  resmeared  in  the  autumn  or 


LIFE   NEAR  GRAND  RAPJDS,    MICHIGAN,   ABOUT    185O  735 

retouched.  A  child  inside  of  the  house  would  push  a  straw  through 
the  chinks  to  show  the  father  where  to  smear.  Cooking  was 
done  in  open  fire.  Bread  baked  not  in  kettle-oven,  but  in  tin 
kitchen,  like  those  used  in  Bucks  county,  but  without  the  spit, 
called  by  him  a  spike.  A  crane  was  put  in  the  fireplace  and 
boiling  done  in  iron  and  brass  kettles.  Gridiron  and  long  handled 
frying  pans  were  used.  No  samp  mills  used  and  no  querns. 
Grain,  hominy,  etc.,  ground  and  made  at  neighboring  gristmills, 
and  paid  for  in  toll.  Fanning  mills  like  ours  with  crank  for 
grain.  Corn  shellers  not  home  made.  Sometimes  shelled  corn 
sitting  on  the  back  of  a  shovel.  Saw  Indian  woman  bake  short- 
cake on  flat  stone.  The  stone  was  heated  in  a  fire,  swept  ofif 
with  a  brush,  flour  sprinkled  on,  batter  mixed  in  tin  basin,  then 
spread  on  stone  and  basin  turned  over  it.  It  required  about 
twenty  minutes  to  bake  on  open  wood  fires.  Wool  was  carded 
in  water-run  gristmills.  These  mills  produced  rolls  or  rovings 
about  three  feet  long  and  as  thick  as  ones  finger.  Out  of  one 
roving  about  twenty  twirls  were  necessary  to  spin  it,  and  Mrs. 
Rice  spun,  but  she  stopped  continually  to  start  the  wheel,  and 
sometimes  she  doubled,  and  spun  thread  on  the  wheel  into  a 
heavier  yarn. 

There  was  a  spring  at  this  house  and  a  well  was  not  required, 
but  at  another  house  where  Mr.  Thomas'  step-father  dug  a  well 
forty  feet  deep,  a  windlass  was  used  to  draw  the  water.  Well- 
sweeps  were  very  common  in  that  community  and  were  gen- 
erally used  where  water  was  shallow.  Shoes  were  bought  from 
towns,  and  not  made  at  home.  Earlier  settlers  often  wore  moc- 
casins obtained  from  the  Indians,  who  often  camped  in  that  neigh- 
borhood in  1856.  When  ordering  maple  sugar  from  the  Indians, 
on  one  occasion  the  Indians  returned  without  it,  saying  that  In- 
dian squaw  had  washed  papoose  in  one  of  the  wooden  troughs  of 
fresh  maple  syrup.  They  had  one  maple  tree  on  their  own  tract, 
and  made  sugar  themselves.  The  sap  was  boiled  down  in  three 
iron  kettles,  which  held  about  five  pails  each.  The  last  kettle 
made  the  thick  syrup.    As  no  fishing  was  done,  no  nets  were  made. 

His  stepfather  farmed  eighty  acres  by  first  cutting  out  the  un- 
derbrush, then  sometimes,  wnth  ten  or  twelve  yoke  of  oxen  on 
one  large  plow,  ripped  through  the  roots  with  a  sound  like  that 
of  firecrackers.     A  man  followed  the  plow  with  hand  spike  to 


736  HUNTING,  TRAPPING  AND  FISHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

pry  out  coulter  when  caught  under  large  roots.  Sowed  crops, 
then  girdled  trees  in  spring,  cut  them  down  when  dead,  cut  them 
in  pieces  and  burned  them  up.  His  stepfather  had  a  wooden  sled. 
He  took  his  ox-cart  with  him  from  Conway,  Mass.,  by  canals, 
lakes,  etc.,  to  Detroit,  then  drove  through  woods,  cutting  down 
trees  when  necessary.  He  bought  oxen  and  a  cow  in  Detroit. 
The  cow  got  away  in  the  night,  depriving  them  of  a  milk  supply, 
but  the  disaster  was  remedied,  when  the  cow  was  found  next  day 
tied  to  a  tree  at  a  log  house,  several  miles  ahead,  having  fol- 
lowed the  forward  trail. 


Hunting,  Traping  and  Fishing  in  Bucks  County. 

BY  THADDEUS   S.    KENDERDINE,    NEWTON,   PA. 
(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  11,  1924.) 

IN  my  childhood  days  the  country  along  the  Delaware  river 
for  at  least  four  miles  between  Lumberville  and  Centre  Bridge 
in  Bucks  county  was  a  wooded  forest.  In  places  this  forested 
area  extended  a  mile  and  a  half  inland,  in  heavy  and  level 
reaches,  while  beyond,  farther  back  from  the  river  there  was 
good  farming  country.  The  wooded  area  must  have  amounted 
to  six  hundred  acres  of  forest  untouched  by  the  woodman's  axe. 
Through  this  flowed  the  historic  Cuttaloosa  creek.  This  terri- 
tory, so  well  watered  and  forested  made  a  natural  game  preserve 
for  beast,  bird  or  fowl.  Of  course  during  my  time  bear,  deer 
and  wolf  had  long  since  disappeared,  as  well  as  wild  turkeys, 
though  an  occasional  eagle  was  seen.  There  was  however  plenty 
of  small  fourfooted  game,  sucl""  as  foxes,  raccoons,  opossums, 
rabbits  and  squirrels,  and  bird  game  from  pheasant  to  robin,  for 
there  were  no  game  laws  then.  There  were  fishes  from  catfish 
to  "sunnies."  Wild  pigeons  had  not  yet  ceased  to  exist,  and  in  the 
middle  forties  I  went  in  the  back  part  of  the  woods  with  my 
father  to  shoot  or  trap  a  large  flock  that  we  heard  was  there. 
My  father  was  armed  with  a  long  fowling  piece  which  he  had 
brought  with  him  from  Montgomery  county,  where  he  had  suc- 
cussefully  hunted  these  pigeons,  but  it  was  a  case  of  more  hunt- 
ing than  finding,  the  pigeons  had  flown,  we  therefore  tramped 


HUNTING,  TRAPPING  AND  FISHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY  7Z7 

the  woods  in  vain.  At  other  times  I  hunted  with  my  brother, 
Watson,  but  I  was  too  young  to  do  anything  but  carry  the  game, 
though  I  enjoyed  the  vicarious  sport.  With  dog  and  gun  we 
roamed  the  forest  primeval,  looking  upward  for  squirrels  and 
birds  and  downwards  for  rabbits.  My  brother  had  heard  of 
hunters  so  restricted  by  circumstances,  that  they  had  neither 
bullets  nor  metal  retorts  wherewith  to  melt  lead,  and,  profiting 
by  their  experience,  he  extemporized  a  melting-pot  by  hollowing 
out  wood,  and  placing  in  the  cavity,  layers  of  shavings  and  chipped 
lead,  and  with  his  lungs  for  a  bellows,  the  lead  was  fused  and 
run  into  his  hand  bullet-mold.  The  shavings  in  the  bullet-mold 
were  not  fired  with  matches  but  with  flint,  powder  and  punk,  al- 
though we  had  matches  in  our  pockets.  In  fact  the  work  might 
have  been  done  with  modern  conveniences,  and  moreover  there 
was  no  need  of  bullets  for  there  was  no  game  of  bear  or  deer 
size  requiring  them.  The  whole  scheme  had  a  Davy  Crockett, 
Nick-in-the-Woods,  Tom  Sawyer  flavor,  which  appealed  to  boys 
reading  backwoods  tales. 

By  the  time  I  was  twelve  years  old  I  had  a  gun  of  my  own, 
something  long  wished  for,  but  not  secured  for  lack  of  money  to 
buy  one.  But  in  the  nick  of  time  there  came  a  lift  from  my  father, 
who  offered  each  of  his  children  25  cents  a  year  for  every  year 
they  were  old,  if  they  would  do  without  cofifee  for  one  year.  We 
all  accepted  his  challenge,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  I  was 
handed  $2.75,  which  with  the  addition  of  my  rabbit  and  nut 
money,  enabled  me  to  buy  a  gun  for  $6.00.  But  the  only  time  I 
ever  went  hunting  with  it  I  shot  but  one  single  bird,  a  poor  robin. 
It  was  ten  years  before  I  went  hunting  again,  and  then  with  a 
government  rifle  placed  in  my  hands  for  standing  off  Indians,  but 
just  then  released  for  more  specific  purposes.  This  was  when  I 
went  on  a  bufifalo  hunt.  I  singled  out  a  big  bull  bison  from  the 
herd,  fired  at  and  hit  him.  J^ut  he  did  not  drop,  even  at  my  second 
shot.  I  was  alone  and  it  w^as  night  fall,  I  was  afraid  to  continue 
the  fusilade,  lest  I  might  be  the  hunted  instead  the  hunter,  I 
therefore  hurriedly  left  him  alone  amid  the  Platte  sandhills,  as 
the  rest  of  the  herd  had  scattered.  Meanwhile,  I  got  lost  in  the 
darkness  on  my  way  to  camp,  which  I  only  reached  by  hearing 
shots  fired  by  my  comrades  to  locate  my  whereabouts.  I  can  only 
say  that  there  was  no  sport  for  me  in  these  two  experiences  of 


738  HUNTING,  TRAPPING  AND  FISHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY 

shooting  bird  and  beast.  I  have  always  been  ashamed  of  both 
shootings,  and  mention  the  buffalo  hunt  only  as  a  comparison  be- 
tween my  two  hunting  episodes. 

As  for  trapping  the  four  legged  victims  were  'coons,  'possums, 
muskrats,  rabbits  and  squirrels ;  and  of  birds,  partridges  and 
pheasants.  The  box-traps  were  "gins,"  those  of  open  or  slat- 
work,  dead-falls  and  snares,  all  of  them  sprung  with  the  figure 
4  trap-sticks,  consisting  of  "standard,"  "flyer,"  and  "treadle." 
The  box-traps  were  boy-made  with  trap-sticks  placed  either  in 
front  or  rear;  if  in  the  latter  way,  the  rear  end  of  the  trap  was 
made  high  or  on  the  level  with  the  raised  lid,  in  order  that  a 
string  from  the  top  would  more  readily  accommodate  itself  to 
rear  sticks.  The  treadle  extended  forward,  so  that  the  game 
nibbling  at  the  bait  sprang  the  lid.  Seeking  the  results  from  a 
sprung  trap  was  rather  risky,  for  the  victim,  instead  of  being  a 
harmless  rabbit,  might  be  a  fighting  varmint  or  a  polecat.  Then 
there  was  the  dead-fall,  held  in  suspension  by  the  conventional 
trap-sticks,  which  left  the  victim  harmless.  For  birds  a  trap  was 
made  of  slats  one  inch  square,  built  cob-house  fashion,  drawn  at 
the  top  like  a  flat,  truncated  cone  to  a  two-foot  top  covered  with 
boards.  This  was  made  without  a  nail,  the  whole  was  held  to- 
gether by  pressure  from  a  stick  laid  across  the  top  and  tied  at 
the  ends  to  the  lower  slat.  Grain  scattered  under  the  trap  around 
a  branchy-ended  treadle,  attracted  the  birds.  It  was  lucky  if 
there  were  no  crows  among  the  visitors  to  these  traps.  Unlike 
other  traps,  this  attracted  day  game.  The  snare  must  not  be  for- 
gotten. This  was  composed  of  a  light,  springy  sapling,  bent  to 
the  ground  with  a  noose  attached  to  its  end,  reaching  down  to 
trap-sticks,  so  that  when  the  danger-end  of  the  treadle  was  dis- 
turbed by  pheasant  or  rabbit,  something  happened  ending  with 
suspension,  without  act  of  judge  or  jury.  This  sounds  cruel,  but 
instantaneous  death  was  merciful  as  compared  to  the  lingering 
suffering  brought  on  by  neglected  steel-traps  or  box-traps,  where 
the  victims  died  from  pain  and  hunger.  Trapping  game  was  a 
boyhood  delight,  and  the  suffering  of  beast  or  fish  did  not  enter 
very  much  into  boy  philosophy. 

Before  the  sawmills  were  built  on  the  Cuttaloosa,  there  were 
plenty  of  fish  in  the  stream,  but  thereafter  the  sour  sawdust  from 
hard  wood,  lodging  in  the  eddies,  drove  away  or  killed  the  fish. 


HUNTING,  TRAPPING  AND  FISHING  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY  72>^) 

The  tishing  up  the  stream  was  done  at  night  when  the  fish  were 
asleep  and  less  wary.  The  implements  were  the  "gig,"  and  hand 
net.  The  gig  was  made  of  the  trident  class,  on  a  minature  scale, 
barbed  and  with  a  six-foot  handle,  while  the  net  swung  at  the  end 
of  two  five- foot  handles,  the  far  ends  of  which  were  used  for 
disturbing  the  fish  underlying  stones.  A  torch  was  required,  and 
the  one  we  used  was  almost  as  primitive  as  that  used  by  the  Briton 
cave-man,  or  as  the  odd  bullet  contraption  used  by  my  brother, 
which  I  have  described.  This  torch  was  made  of  a  tightly  bound 
handfuU  of  rye  straw,  a  quiver  of  which  was  needed  for  con- 
tinuous gigging.  For  this  sport,  the  force  needed  was  harpooner, 
torch-bearer,  whisp-carrier  and  a  boy  to  tote  the  catch,  which 
was,  of  course,  the  writer  of  these  chronicles,  who  felt  as  im- 
portant as  any  of  the  party.  After  a  hastily-eaten  supper,  the 
fishing  up  the  Cuttaloosa  was  started,  my  father  in  the  lead. 
This  kind  of  fishing  had  been  an  old-time  sport  of  my  father 
along  the  wooded  Little  Neshaminy  creek.  Starting  at  the  mouth 
of  our  local  stream  we  fished  up  stream  for  hundreds  of  yards, 
prodding  under  stones  and  roots,  and  then  gigging  the  startled 
suckers  and  catfish.  Waving  of  the  straw  torch  to  excite  a  blaze, 
wore  it  out,  and  it  required  frequent  replacements.  It  was  splen- 
did sport  and  quite  exciting  when  a  good  strike  was  made,  and 
the  results  handed  over  to  me.  This  and  the  flaring  of  the  torch 
through  the  darkness  are  strong  in  my  memory,  and  I  shall  never 
forget  that  night  cruise  up  the  waters  of  the  Cuttalossa.  I  have 
no  recollection  of  but  one  of  these  expeditions,  but  I  do  remem- 
ber another  outing  with  a  fish  net. 

In  my  California  days,  ( although  I  never  mined, )  robbing  sluice- 
boxes  was  considered  the  sin  of  sins,  ranking  higher  than  "self 
defence,"  in  killing.  In  our  peaceful  Solebury  township  region, 
robbing  traps,  while  of  a  minor  sort,  was  considered  bad  enough, 
and  the  criminality  one  of  the  meanest.  An  odd  event  was  con- 
nected with  our  home  trapping.  My  two  older  brothers,  about 
1848,  visiting  one  of  the  outposts  of  our  game  preserve,  on  our 
own  land,  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  Delaware  river,  caught  a 
poacher  early  one  morning  lifting  a  rabbit  from  one  of  our  sprung 
traps.  And  what  did  this  specialist  do  ?  Take  to  his  heels  ?  Not 
a  bit  of  it.  He  politely  handed  the  stolen  rabbit  to  the  lawful 
owners,  and  in  a  sort  of  "heaping  coals  of  fire  on  their  heads," 


740  RANDOM    NOTES    ON    FORGOTTEN    TRADES 

gave  the  boys  a  lecture  on  the  sinfulness  of  stealing,  as  if  he  had 
done  the  deed  under  the  pressure  of  self-sacrifice,  pretending  to 
give  them  some  good  advice,  saying  that  this  should  be  a  lesson  to 
last  them  a  lifetime,  viz,  not  to  take  things  not  their  own.  This 
Pecksniffian  manner  was  kept  up  till  the  boys  began  to  think  them- 
selves the  guilty  parties.  They  uneasily  made  preparations  for 
setting  their  trap  again  and  getting  away  from  the  hypnotic  in- 
fluence of  this  would-be  thief.  There  must  have  been  some 
kleptomania  about  the  transaction,  for  the  young  man  was  of 
good  family ;  however  our  boys  got  the  rabbit.  It  is  a  matter  of 
interest  to  know  that  this  person  got  a  college  education,  studied 
law,  went  west,  got  to  be  a  law  judge ;  in  the  meantime  deserting 
his  ancestral  religion  and  politics.  This  was  but  natural,  as  he 
had  got  into  different  surrovmdings  and  he  went  with  the  Romans, 
by  doing  as  they  did. 


Random  Notes  on  Forgotten  Trades. 

BY  DR.  HENRY  C.  MERCER  AND  HORACE  M.  MANN. 

(Tohickon  Park  Meeting,  October  11,  1924.) 

NEW  STOVE  AT  REDDING  FURNACE  IN    1 749. 

(Found  in  Christopher  Sauer's  Newspaper  "Pennsylvania  Bericht" 
of  Sept.  1,  1749,  and  translated  from  the  German  by  Rudolph  P.  Hom- 
mel,  Sept.  29,  1918.) 

^^     A     RATHER  new  kind  of  iron  stove  is  being  cast  at  Redding 
/~\    Furnace,  by  which  one  can  heat  a  big  room  and  also  can 
cook,  fry  and  bake  upon  the  stove  within  the  room,  so 
that  no  smell  thereof  will  be  noticeable  in  the  room.     This  kind 
of  stove  can  be  seen  at  the  shop  of  the  printer  of  this  (paper)." 
In  the  same  paper  the  new  calendar  for  the   following  year 
(1750)   is  advertised.     In  this  calendar  the  following  advertise- 
ment is  found :     "William  Branson  in  Philadelphia  makes  known 
that  from  him  may  be  obtained  iron  rollers  or  wells  for  cider 
mills,  besides  iron  stoves  and  other  iron  ware." 


RANDOM    NOTES    OX    FORGOTTEN    TRADES  741 

OLD  GLASS  WORKS  IN  BUCKS  COUNTY. 

(Information  to  Dr.  Mercer  by  Mr.  Frederick  Brucker  of  Hagers- 
tovvn,   Bucks   county.) 

Mr,  Brucker  heard  that  a  glass  works  or  factory  had  once 
existed  near  H.  Yost's  mill,  and  connecting  this  statement  with 
the  notes  on  the  subject  gathered  by  Mr.  R.  P.  Hommel,  I  at 
once  visited  Samuel  Berger,  then  living  close  to  the  mill  in 
question,  who  told  me  that  he  had  formerly  owned  (but  since 
sold)  the  field  on  which  a  glass  factory  was  said  to  have  existed 
a  long  time  ago.  He  also  said  he  had  often  plowed  up  pieces  of 
slag  or  imperfect  glass  in  the  said  field  and  promised  to  get  me 
one  of  these  pieces.  The  field  aforementioned  lies  about  one  and 
one-half  miles  northeast  of  Blooming  Glen  in  Bucks  county,  near 
the  left  side  of  the  road  going  north  from  H.  Yost's  mill  to 
Hagersville,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  mill  and  on  the 
property  marked  W.  Yost,  47,  on  Smith's  map  of  1876. 

In  going  over  the  tax  lists  of  Bucks  county  we  find  an  entry 
for  a  Peter  Mason,  glass  works,  in  1781.  Peter  Mason  con- 
tinues to  be  taxed  for  the  next  three  years,  but  the  word  glass 
works,  does  not  again  appear  in  connection  with  his  name. 

EDWARD  Marshall's  rifle. 

(Information  written  by  some  member  of  the  Pursell  family.  Orig- 
inal manuscript  in  possession  of  Capt.  J.  G.  Dillon,  Philadelphia,  who 
is  writing  a  book  on  rifles.     Given  to  Horace  M,  Mann,  April  26,  1922.) 

"Edward  Marshall's  rifle  was  a  medium  long  one,  made  in  some  other 
country  and  set  up  here.  This  rifle  had  a  hole  in  butt,  in  this  hole  was 
placed  an  adders  tongue  and  something  else  but  can't  say  what  it  was. 
And  the  hole  was  plugged  up  so  he  could  not  loose  them.  The  stock 
extended  to  end  of  barrel.  It  was  a  walnut  stock  but  am  not  sure.  Ed- 
ward Marshall  was  my  great,  great,  great,  grandfather.  Martin  Marshall 
was  my  grandmother's  father,  that  was  Edward  Marshall's  son.  He 
was  my  father's  grandfather.  Edward  Marshall  was  a  believer  in 
witches  in  those  days.  A  conjurer  in  Philadelphia  put  the  two  things 
in  the  butt  of  his  gun  as  it  had  failed  to  kill  anything.  The  conjurer 
loaded  his  rifle  by  cutting  a  quarter  in  four  pieces.  The  conjurer  told 
him  to  go  home  which  he  did.  There  had  been  a  buck  deer  coming 
every  day  and  looking  over  the  garden  wall  at  him  and  he  had  failed 
to  kill  this  deer.  That  is  what  made  him  take  his  gun  to  a  conjurer. 
After  arriving  home  in  a  day  or  two  the  deer  appeared  at  the  same 
place.  Marshall  took  his  rifle  and  stood  on  his  porch  and  fired  at  him 
him  and  the  deer  ran  ofif,  when  he  looked  where  the  deer  was  standing 


742  RANDOM    NOTES   ON    FORGOTTEN    TRADES 

he  found  the  rim  of  a  home  spun  petticoat.  I  suppose  he  thought  this 
came  from  the  witch.  His  first  wife  was  killed  by  the  Indians.  They 
watched  him  when  he  left  the  house  and  started  to  go  after  his  wife 
and  daughter.  The  daughter  saw  them  coming  and  tried  to  go  for  her 
father  but  one  of  the  Indians  shot  her  and  she  fell  in  a  pool  of  water, 
and  she  'came  to'  enough  to  reach  her  father  and  son  where  they  were 
chopping  wood.  Grace  was  the  name  of  this  •  daughter  whom  Moses 
Ridge  married  afterward.  The  old  Marshall  rifle  is  in  Belvidere,  N.  J., 
owned  by  Samuel  Myers." 

This  last  statement  of  the  manuscript  is,  or  course,  incorrect, 
the  Marshall  rifle  being  in  the  museum  of  the  Bucks  County  His- 
torical Society,  numbered  10,780.  This  rifle  is  a  flint  lock  fifty- 
three  and  one-half  inches  long,  with  a  very  large  bore,  heavy 
M'alnut  stock,  patch  pocket  with  wooden  lid  and  heavy  brass 
trimming.  On  the  top  of  the  barrel,  near  the  hammer,  is  stamped 
Rothenberg  (therefore  from  Germany)  which  agrees  with  the 
manuscript  that  it  came  from  "some  other  country."  On  the 
under  side  of  the  butt,  about  six  inches  from  the  heel,  is  a  deep 
hole  which  may  have  been  made  by  the  conjurer.  There  is  also 
a  shallow  scratch  imder  the  brass  heel  plate,  but  this  is  not  deep 
enough  to  hold  anything.  The  adder  also  is  not  known  in  Bucks 
county  today,  nor  in  fact,  is  it  found  anywhere  in  the  eastern 
United  States. 


■Mi 


MARSHALL'S   RIFLE. 
In  Museum  of  Bucks  County  Historical  Society. 

SIIILLALAII. 

(Information  given  to  Horace  M.  Mann.  May  7,  1924,  by  James 
Redmond,  formerly  of  Leinster  province,  Ireland,  aged  about  90  years, 
now  living  in  Doylestown.) 

A  stick  or  cane  cut  from  the  blackthorn  and  known  as  the 
"Mother  of  Sloe."  The  stick  is  cut  about  three  feet  long  and 
usually  has  a  knob  or  handle  in  the  upper  end.  Its  purpose  or 
use  is  that  of  a  cane,  and  while  it  is  often  used  in  fights,  Mr. 
Redmond  does  not  think  they  were  made  primarily  as  a  weapon, 
but  as  a  walking  stick.  The  hole  in  both  specimens  in  the  muse- 
um, he  knows  nothing  about,  and  thinks  it  was  bored  later  to 
hang  it  up  as  a  wall  decoration.     Both  specimens  in  the  museum 


RANDOM    NOTES    ON    FORGOTTKN    TRADES  743 

collection  are    shorter  than   the   ones   he    was   accustomed   to   in 
Ireland. 

Of  the  two  specimens,  referred  to  above,  museum  No.  18,008, 
was  presented  by  Alexander  McLees  of  Morrisville,  January  9, 
1922,  and  w-as  brought  by  Mr.  McLees  from  near  Ballycastle, 
County  Antrim,  Ireland.  Museum  No.  19,414,  was  presented  by 
Mrs.  William  R.  j\l€rcer,  and  was  obtained  by  her  father,  Mr. 
Dana  of  Boston.  The  term  "Shillalah,"  is  taken  from  a  barony 
and  village  in  County  Wicklow,  Ireland,  near  which  there  was 
a  forest  of  oaks  out  of  which  cudgels  were  cut.  (New  English 
Dictionary,  1914.) 

doctor's  iron  mortar  used  f-or  making  scythe  rifles  by  the 

CHAPMAN   family  OF  WRIGHTSTOWN,   PA. 

(Information  by  James  Redmond,  to  Horace  M.  Mann,  May  7,  1924.) 
Mr.  Redmond  worked  for  Isaac  Chapman,  Wrightstown,  son 
of  Dr.  Thomas  Chapman,  from  1861  until  1869.  He  used  this 
mortar  for  grinding  stone  or  sand  with  which  to  make  scythe 
rifles.  In  making  these  rifles  a  piece  of  wood  about  eighteen 
inches  long,  two  to  two  and  one-half  inches  wide,  and  about  an 
inch  thick,  was  cut  out  and  a  convenient  handle  worked  on  one  end. 
The  balance  of  the  piece  was  scored  and  pitted  with  the  teeth 
of  an  old  hand  saw,  these  pits  and  holes  w-ere  filled  in  with  soft 
tallow  and  then  covered  with  sand,  pulverized  in  the  above  mortar. 
A  good  hard  grit  stone,  like  flint,  was  used.  This  was  first 
broken  with  a  hammer  and  then  pulverized  in  the  mortar.  When 
the  rifle  wore  smooth,  more  sand  was  dusted  on  it.  In  rifling  a 
scythe  with  a  new  rifle  which  was  too  rough,  he  would  use  the 
sides  or  edges  of  the  rifle  on  which  there  was  no  sand  to  smooth 
ofif  the  sometimes  roughened  edge  of  the  scythe.  This  mortar  is 
now  in  the  museum  under  No.  11,631  and  was  presented  l\v 
Mrs.  Ruth  Ann  Chapman,  Wrightstown. 

AXE   whetstones   AND    HOME    MADE   GRINDSTONES. 

(From  information  in  letters  of  Col.  Henry  W.  Shoemaker  to  Dr. 
Henry  C.  Mercer,  during  the  summer  of  1924.) 

In  letter  of  July  23,  1924,  Colonel  Shoemaker  writes  that  \\'. 
J.  Phillips  of  McElhattan,  Pa.,  born  1862,  told  him  that: 

"When  the  pioneers  arrived  in   a  locality  where   they  planned   to  re- 


744  RANDOM    NOTES    ON    FORGOTTEN    TRADES 

main  awhile  thej'  made  hand  dressed  grindstones,  I  have  seen  one  used 
by  my  grandfather.  It  was  cut  out  of  a  dark  stone.  I  have  also  seen 
hand  made  whetstones.  The  modern  grindstones  are  cut  out  by  machin- 
ery and  the  modern  whetstones  ground  out  on  emery  wheels.  When  on 
the  march  the  pioneers  rubbed  their  axes  on  the  whetstones  or  on  other 
stones,  but  they  kept  an  'edge'  on  their  axes  far  longer  than  today, 
they  never  cut  into  roots  or  rocks  and  cut  their  stumps  high  in  the 
clear  original  timber." 

Mr.  John  C.  French  of  Roulette,  Pa.,  writes  in  a  letter  of  July 
11,  1924: 

"Tell  him  that  fine  grained  sand-stones  were  often  found  in  streams 
which  served  as  w^hetstones  for  axe  and  knife.  Most  men  carried  small 
tine  whetstones  with  them,  which  served  to  finish  the  edge  of  axe  or 
knife  after  sharpening  with  coarse  stones.  Some  carried  file  and  small 
whetstones.  When  lumbering  began,  grindstones  were  taken  into  the 
forest  or  made  near  the  work  from  fine  sand-stone  ledges,  as  at  Canoe 
Place.  (See  Anniversary  Newspaper  of  May  29,  1924,  Port  Allegheny 
Reporter,)  Daniel  Boone  carried  bullets  and  his  friends  brought  lead 
and  powder  by  boat  and  by  team  of  horses  and  oxen." 

In  a  letter  of  August  12th,  Colonel  Shoemaker  w^rites : 

"From  information  furnished  him  by  'Squire  Thompson  of  Couders- 
port:  The  secret  of  the  old  axeman  was  that  they  knew  how  to  keep  a 
blade  in  order.  Many  M'ould  put  a  careful  edge  on  their  axes  before 
starting  on  a  journey  and  they  would  never  see  a  grindstone  for  weeks  or 
months.  Whenever  they  had  a  little  leisure  time  you  could  see  them 
sitting  on  a  stump  dressing  their  blades  with  fine  river  stones.  I  have 
seen  some  fine  natural  whetstones  picked  up  along  the  Allegheny 
River,  used  for  this  purpose.  When  they  located  at  a  new  home  the 
first  thing  they  did  was  to  carve  out  a  grindstone.  Then  they  were 
happy." 

Charles  A.  Crawford,  born  about  1862,  son  of  John  W.  Craw- 
ford, an  old  woodman,  gave  Colonel  Shoemaker  the  following 
information  forw^arded  in  a  letter  of  August  1,  1924. 

"When  the  pioneers  were  traveling  through  the  country  they  found 
smooth  stones  along  the  creeks  and  rivers  and  could  keep  an  axe  in 
fine  condition  that  way,  but  before  leaving  civilization  they  ground  their 
axes  on  a  grindstone  and  put  them  in  the  best  of  order.  I  have  seen 
an  old  home  made  grindstone,  partly  finished,  that  was  ploughed  up 
near  my  home.  It  was  fourteen  inches  in  diameter  and  about  two 
and  one-half  inches  thick,  the  hole  had  already  been  cut  in  it  but  it 
had  been  discarded  while  still  unfinished.  It  was  made  from  a  fine 
piece  of  sandstone.  I  took  it  home  and  will  hunt  for  it  and  if  I  can 
find  it.  Dr.  Mercer  can  have  it.     (Presented  to  museum  Sept.  3,  1924.) 


ANDREW  ELLICOTT,  THE  GREAT  SURVEYOR  745 

Paul  H.  Mulford,  Wellsboro,  Pa.,  writes  Horace  M.  Mann, 
August  25,  1924: 

"I  had  a  whetstone  which  has  been  in  our  family  some  ninety  or 
more  years,  but  last  Spring  loaned  it  to  a  workman  who  lost  it.  We 
know  of  no  other  like  it.  All  the  old  men  I  knew  selected  a  native 
stone  of  proper  texture  and  wore  it  down  to  fit  their  needs,  in  fact  I 
have  seen  Mr.  Swope,  now  dead,  pick  up  a  stone  and  work  it  down  for 
his  whetstone." 

Abraham  Burket,  for  fifty  years  a  woodsman  in  central  and 
southern  Pennsylvania,  who  died  recently,  told  Colonel  Shoe- 
maker, that  he  had  heard  the  old  folks  say  that  the  pioneers  took 
mountain  stones  which  they  ground  down  to  a  convenient  size 
for  carrying  around  with  them.  These  they  used  in  sharpening 
their  axes  and  knives. 

Charles  Weaner,  an  aged  woodman  of  Millersburg,  Pa.,  also 
told  Colonel  Shoemaker  the  following: 

"I  have  seen  some  very  good  whetstones  that  some  of  the  old  pioneers 
said  they  found  in  rock  strata  on  hills.  Whenever  possible  they  carried 
grindstones  with  them  in  search  for  a  new  home." 


Andrew  Ellicott,  The  Great  Surveyor. 

BY  WARREN   S.   ELY,  DOYLESTOWN,   PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,   January    17,   1925.) 

AMONG  the  natives  of  Bucks  county  who  achieved  a  na- 
tional reputation  probably  the  most  eminent  was  Andrew 
Ellicott,  the  great  surveyor-general  of  the  United  States. 
He  was  born  in  Solebury  township,  Bucks  county,  January  24. 
1754,  and  died  at  West  Point,  New  York,  August  29,  1820. 

Andrew  Ellicott,  the  grandfather  of  the  surveyor  (with  his 
father,  who  bore  the  same  name),  came  to  Pennsylvania  on  a 
visit  in  1730  at  the  age  of  22  years.  Andrew,  Sr.,  had  been  en- 
gaged in  the  textile  business  at  Plymouth  in  Devonshire,  Eng- 
land, and  having  met  with  business  reverses  accompanied  his  son 
on  a  visit  to  the  New  World.  The  young  man  was  agreeably 
impressed  with  the  land  on  the  Delaware  and  especially  im- 
pressed with  a  young  lady  named  Ann  Bye,  a  daughter  of  Na- 


746  ANDREW  ELLICOTT,  THE  GREAT  SURVEYOR 

thaniel  Bye  of  Buckingham.  He  sought  and  obtained  member- 
ship in  Buckingham  Monthly  Meeting  where  the  young  lady 
held  membership  and  in  1731  he  married  her  and  purchased  a 
farm  of  sixty  acres  in  Solebury  bordering  on  Buckingham  town- 
ship a  short  distance  below  Peters  Corner,  the  late  Frederick 
Pearson  farm.  The  log  house  in  which  the  family  lived  for  over 
half  century  was  torn  down  in  1855. 

Andrew  EUicott.  Sr.,  is  said  to  have  remained  in  Bucks  county, 
and  died  in  the  old  log  house.  Andrew  Ellicott,  the  son,  was  a 
weaver  and  followed  that  trade  in  connection  with  tilling  the 
soil,  until  his  death  in  1741.  His  widow  married  second, 
George  Wall  and  was  the  mother  of  Colonel  George  Wall  of  the 
Revolution ;  sheritT  of  Bucks  county,  and  a  member  of  Supreme 
Executive  council,  and  a  daughter,  Mary  Wall,  who  married  a 
Dixon.  By  Andrew  Ellicott  she  had  four  sons,  Joseph.  Andrew, 
John  and  Nathaniel.  Joseph,  who  was  the  father  of  the  sur- 
veyor-general, was  born  in  1732  and  was  a  great  clock- 
maker  and  mathematician.  He  married  in  1753,  Judith  Blaker. 
a  daughter  of  Samuel  Blaker  of  Buckingham  and  a  descendant 
of  Johannes  Bleikers,  one  of  the  thirteen  founders  of  German- 
town.  In  1766,  Joseph  Ellicott  went  to  England  and  received  a 
substantial  legacy  inherited  from  his  mother's  family.  Soon 
thereafter  he  and  his  brothers.  John  and  Thomas,  made  an  ex- 
tended trip  on  horseback  in  search  of  mill-sites.  They  finally 
located  a  large  tract  of  wild  land  on  the  Potapsco  river  in  Mary- 
land, where  Joseph  and  John  erected  large  mills  about  which 
eventually  grew  the  town  of  Ellicotts'  Mills,  now  known  as  Elli- 
cott City.  Joseph  died  there  prior  to  1788.  He  was  sheriff  of 
Bucks  county,  1768-9.  He  and  his  brother.  Andrew,  and  their 
half  brother.  Col.  George  Wall,  purchased  the  mill  tract  at  Lum- 
berville  in  1762,  which,  after  the  erection  of  the  mill,  the  Ellicott 
brothers  conveyed  to  Colonal  Wa.\\.  Andrew,  the  second  son  was 
a  farmer  in  Plumstead  and  Buckingham  tmtil  about  1796  but 
eventually  joined  his  brother  and  nephews  on  the  Potapsco. 
whither  his  sons  had  preceeded  him.  Thomas  and  Nathaniel., 
the  other  two  sons  of  Andrew,  the  pioneer,  lived  and  died  in 
Bucks  county.  Thomas  was  a  miller  and  millwright  and  owned 
the  Carversville  mill  at  the  time  of  his  decease.     He  left  seven 


ANDREW  ELLICOTT,  THE  GREAT  SURVEYOR  747 

daughters  who  have  numerous  descendants  in  Rucks  county.  Na- 
thaniel died  childless. 

Quite  a  number  of  the  clocks  made  by  Joseph  EUicott.  are 
still  in  existence.  One  of  them  is  now  the  property  of  the  Reeder 
family  of  New  Hope.  His  most  famous  production  was  a  musi- 
cal clock  eight  feet  high  with  four  faces.  It  recorded  time  from 
seconds  to  a  century,  and  also  illustrated  the  movements  of  the 
earth,  sun,  moon  and  planets  and  played  twenty-four  tunes. 

The  Ellicotts  were  all  Quakers  but  were  not  strongly  impressed 
with  the  testimony  of  the  sect  against  defensive  warfare.  Every 
one  of  the  four  brothers  and  such  of  the  sons  as  were  old  enough 
were  "dealt  with"  for  participating  in  trainings  or  other  activ- 
ities of  a  w^arlike  nature  in  the  early  part  of  the  Revolutionary 
War.  Nathaniel  and  Thomas  were  reported  to  the  meeting  for 
being  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  bayonets,  and  others  of  the 
family  for  paying  fines. 

About  the  time  of  his  marriage,  Andrew  Ellicott,  the  surveyor, 
was  dealt  with  for  training,  and  consequently  he  married  Sarah 
Brown  at  Newtown,  Bucks  county,  December  31,  1775,  without 
the  formality  of  "passing  Meeting."  His  name  was  therefore 
omitted  from  the  certificate  by  which  his  mother  and  the  other 
children  transferred  their  membership  from  Buckingham  to  Gun- 
powder Monthly  Meeting  in  September,  1777.  He  and  his  wife, 
however,  continued  to  affiliate  with  the  society  after  their  re- 
moval to  EUicott's  Mills,  although  he  was  almost  immediately 
commissioned  captain  of  a  company  in  the  Elk  Ridge  Battal- 
lion  and  later  rose  to  the  rank  of  major. 

Andrew  Ellicott  inherited  a  taste  for  the  higher  mathematics 
and  mechanics  from  his  father  whom  he  assisted  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  clocks  at  the  age  of  15  years.  He  was  therefore  educated 
along  those  lines  under  the  special  care  of  his  father.  He  was 
probably  a  student  at  Williamsburg  University,  as  that  institu- 
tion conferred  upon  him  the  honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts 
in  August,  1784.  In  1782,  he  published  the  "United  States 
Almanac"  which  contained  much  useful  scientific  data  in  addition 
to  the  mass  of  general  information.  A  patriotic  biography  of 
"Madam  Britain,"  giving  a  humorous  account  of  our  separation 
from  the  mother  country,  was  one  of  the  features.  His  scientific 
attainments    attracted    the    attention    of    Washington,    Jefferson, 


748  ANDREW  ELLICOTT,  THE  GREAT  SURVEYOR 

Franklin  and  other  eminent  men  and  he  became  a  member  of  the 
American  Philosophical  Society  of  Philadelphia. 

On  January  2,  1786,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  legislature 
of  Maryland.  He  lived  for  a  time  in  Baltimore  and  was  an  in- 
structor in  mathematics  in  the  Baltimore  Academy. 

In  1784,  Major  EUicott  surveyed  the  boundary  between  Penn- 
sylvania and  Virginia,  both  south  and  west.  During  his  many 
surveying  expeditions  "on  the  edge  of  the  wilderness"  he  kept  up 
a  correspondence  with  his  wife,  and  many  of  his  letters  to  her  are 
published  in  Mrs.  Mathews'  book,  Andrew  EUicott,  His  Life  and 
Letters.  They  give  a  vivid  touch  of  reality  to  the  heroic  work  he 
was  doing  on  the  frontier  in  fixing  boundaries,  establishing  forts, 
etc.  His  references  to  the  great  projects  in  which  he  was  engaged 
and  the  men  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  many  of  whom  were 
prominent  figures  in  public  life,  is  refreshingly  simple,  natural 
and  instructive.  Under  date  of  July  2,  1784,  he  writes  from  the 
Virginia  line  that  he  saw  Abraham  Doan,  the  Tory  outlaw,  and 
his  cousin  Hetty,  taken  to  jail.  On  November  15,  1784,  a  letter 
to  his  wife  says,  "Yesterday  I  fixed  the  southwest  corner  of 
Pennsylvania."  In  April,  1785,  he  was  ordered  by  the  Supreme 
Executive  Council  of  Pennsylvania  to  survey  the  boundary  be- 
tween Pennsylvania  and  Ohio.  In  this  expedition  he  was  accom- 
panied by  his  brother  Benjamin,  who,  with  another  brother, 
Joseph,  both  eminent  engineers,  assisted  him  in  most  of  his  sur- 
veys. David  Rittenhouse,  the  eminent  astronomer,  was  also  as- 
sociated with  Major  EUicott  in  some  of  his  surveys  and  there  was 
a  close  friendship  between  them. 

In  1787  and  1788  Major  EUicott  and  Andrew  Porter,  as  com- 
missioners of  Pennsylvania,  surveyed  and  located  the  line  be- 
tween Pennsylvania  and  New  York  from  the  Delaware  to  Lake 
Erie.  In  the  latter  part  of  1788,  he  surveyed  the  Islands  in  the 
Ohio  and  Allegheny  rivers  and  in  1789  surveyed  the  tract  of  land 
on  Lake  Erie  purchased  by  Pennsylvania  of  congress  by  Act  of 
September  4,  1788.  In  1789,  he  removed  with  his  family  to 
Philadelphia  where  he  continued  his  residence  for  a  number  of 
years.  He  was  for  some  years  professor  of  mathematics  at  the 
Episcopal  Academy,  Philadelphia.  He  was  one  of  the  staunch 
supporters  of  John  Fitch,  the  inventor  of  the  steamboat ;  a  mem- 


ANDREW  ELLICOTT,  THE  GREAT  SURVEYOR  749 

ber  of  the  Steamboat  Company  and  joined  Rittenhouse  and  others 
in  a  number  of  the  certificates  and  petitions  in  Fitch's  behalf. 

In  1790,  congress  having  fixed  the  site  of  the  national  capital 
on  the  Potomac,  Major  Ellicott  was  directed  to  survey  and  lay 
out  the  District  of  Columbia.  He  began  this  work  in  February, 
1791,  and  together  with  the  laying  out  of  the  city  of  Washing- 
ton, was  employed  thereon  until  May,  1793. 

For  the  laying  out  of  the  city  of  Washington,  congress  had 
selected  Major  Pierre  Charles  L'Enfant,  a  distinguished  French 
engineer  who  had  come  to  America  in  the  train  of  the  Marquis  de 
LaFayette  in  April.  1777.  However  the  plan  submitted  by  L'En- 
fant did  not  suit  the  commissioners  who  had  the  matter  in  charge 
and  the  French  engineer  resigned  and  refused  to  surrender  his 
plans.  The  plans  of  the  national  capital  as  laid  out  were  there- 
fore solely  the  work  of  Andrew  Ellicott  and  his  assistants,  prin- 
cipal among  whom  were  his  two  brothers,  Joseph  and  Benjamin, 
to  whom  he  left  the  completion  of  the  work  on  his  retirement 
in  1783. 

Major  Elliott  was  appointed  surveyor  general  of  the  United 
States  in  1792  and  in  April,  1793,  was  one  of  the  commissioners 
to  lay  out  a  road  from  Reading  to  Presque  Isle  on  Lake  Erie. 
His  letters  referring  to  the  trouble,  encountered  with  Cornplant- 
er  and  other  Indian  chiefs  while  at  Le  Boeff  and  Presque  Isle, 
are  intensely  interesting.  He  laid  out  the  town  of  Waterford  at 
Le  Boeff  in  1794  and  in  1795  superintended  the  erection  of  Fort 
Erie  and  laid  out  the  towns  of  Erie,  Warren  and  Franklin. 

The  crowning  achievement  of  the  life  of  Major  Andrew  Elli- 
cott was  the  survey  of  the  boundaries  between  the  United  States 
and  the  Spanish  possessions  in  the  south  and  west,  begun  in 
1796  and  completed  in  April,  1800.  His  journal,  a  large  quarto 
volume  published  in  1803,  gives  a  detailed  account  of  these  sur- 
veys made  in  accordance  with  the  Pinckney-Godoy  Treaty  of 
October  27,  1795.  It  contains  many  maps  of  Florida,  Louisiana 
and  the  country  bordering  on  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  and  notes 
of  the  utmost  interest  historically  in  reference  to  that  section, 
which  was  so  soon  afterward  to  become  a  part  of  the  United 
States  through  what  is  known  as  the  Louisiana  Purchase. 

A  letter  written  to  his  uncle,  Colonel  George  Wall  of  Bucks 
county,  from  Philadelphia  after  his  return,  is  as  follows : 


750  ANDREW  ELLICOTT,  THE  GREAT  SURVEYOR 

"Philadelphia,   May  25.    1800. 
Dear  Uncle: 

It  is  with  pleasure  that  I  acquaint  you  with  my  safe  arrival,  and  re- 
turn to  my  family  and  friends  after  an  absence  of  three  j^ears  and  eight 
months.  Since  I  saw  you  last  I  have  been  exposed  to  hardships  and 
dangers  and  constantly  surrounded  with  difficulties,  but  owing  to  a  good 
constitution  and  perseverence,  I  have  completed  the  arduous  task  en- 
trusted to  me  by  my  country. 

I  wish  much  to  see  you  and  famil}^  and  intend  paying  a  visit  to  my 
friends  in  Bucks  in  a  few  weeks.  At  present  I  am  indisposed  with  the 
ague  and  fever.     I  expect  Doctr  Rush  to  see  me  after  breakfast. 

Please  to  give  my  respects  to  your  family  and  believe  me  to  be 
Your  aflfectionate  nephew, 

Andw   Ellicott." 

The  original  letter  is  among  the  collections  of  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society. 

Major  Ellicott  after  a  year  of  retirement  from  public  office, 
spent  in  Philadelphia  editing  his  journal,  was  appointed  secre- 
tary of  the  Pennsylvania  Land  Office,  October  3,  1801,  and  filled 
that  position  until  April  4,  1809,  residing  during  the  greater  part 
of  the  time  at  Lancaster,  then  the  state  capital. 

He  was  appointed  professor  of  mathematics  at  the  United 
States  Military  Academy  at  West  Point,  September  1,  1813,  and 
filled  that  position  until  his  death  in  1820.  He  was,  however, 
frequently  relieved  from  the  position,  to  supervise  important  sur- 
veys for  the  government.  The  strain  and  exposure  of  his  last 
survey  in  1819  probably  hastened  his  death.  He  died  in  New 
York  from  a  sudden  attack  of  illness  contracted  while  on  a  visit 
to  his  daughter  in  that  city  August  28,  1820. 

Joseph  Ellicott,  brother  of  Andrew,  born  in  Bucks  county, 
November  1,  1760,  was  only  slightly  less  famous  than  his 
elder  brother  as  a  surveyor  and  engineer.  He  was  associated  with 
the  major  in  most  of  his  important  surveys,  excepting  that  of  the 
Louisiana  territor>^  After  the  completion  of  the  plans  of  the  city 
of  Washington  he  was  employed  by  the  Holland  purchasers  in 
New  York  to  survey  their  lands,  and  became  agent  for  that 
country  in  1800,  with  headquarters  at  Batavia,  New  York,  where 
he  died  August  18,  1826. 

He  laid  out  the  city  of  Buffalo  and  was  often  referred  to  as  its 
founder.     He  was  a  zealous  advocate  of  the  Erie  canal  and  one 


THE   LAST   OF   THE    FILE    MAKERS  751 

of  the  engineers  in  charge  of  its  construction,  serving  as  canal 
commissioner  of  New  York  for  several  years. 

Benjamin  Ellicott,  another  brother  of  Major  Andrew  Ellicott, 
was  associated  with  the  latter  as  engineer  in  many  of  his  notable 
surveys,  including  the  laying  out  of  the  city  of  Washington.  He 
was  lieutenant-colonel  from  Huntington  county,  Pennsylvania, 
during  the  Revolution  but  was  a  resident  of  xA.nn  Arundel  county, 
Marvland,  in  1797. 


The  Last  of  the  File  Makers. 

BY    HENRY    K.    DEISHER,    KUNTZTOWN,    PA. 

(Doylestown   Meeting-,   January   17,    1925.) 

DURING  the  summer  of  1924  Dr.  Mercer  requested  me  to 
supply  a  few  missing  links  in  the  museum,  one  of  which 
was  early  file  making. 

i\Iy  first  move  was  writing  to  several  file  manufacturers,  ask- 
ing whether  there  might  be  any  old  hand  tools  laid  away  in  some 
remote  corner  of  their  plants,  and  if  so  I  would  relish  to  rum- 
mage, by  permission.  This  produced  nothing.  However,  Henry 
Disston  &  Sons  sent  me  a  booklet  "The  File  in  History"  which 
supplies  much  valuable  information.  It  illustrates  and  describes 
files  and  rasps  of  copper  and  bronze  as  early  as  1000  to  1200 
B.  C.  The  oldest  iron  file  recorded,  was  made  by  Assyrians  dur- 
ing the  seventh  century  B.  C.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  file  is 
the  exact  shape  of  the  modern  tool. 

Many  collections  of  Indian  material  contain  stone  files,  flat, 
round  and  grooved  ones,  but  for  want  of  a  proper  name,  arch- 
aeologists call  them  abrasive  stones,  just  as  the  name  sand  paper 
signifies  its  make-up,  but  a  more  appropriate  name  would  be 
file  paper. 

After  file  making  became  an  industry,  Germany  took  the  lead, 
but  the  thirty  years  war  paralyzed  the  business  and  the  center  of 
file  making  shifted  to  Sheffield,  England.  It  is  recorded  that 
there  were  a  few  file-cutters  in  Philadelphia  in  1698,  and  in 
Pittsburgh  about  1829. 


752  THE    LAST   OF   THE   FILE    MAKERS 

The  first  file-cutting  machine  was  invented  by  an  Itahan  in 
1502,  followed  in  later  years  by  many  patents  and  improvements. 
Like  the  first  power  saw-machines,  many  file  machines  sufifered 
the  fate  of  destruction  by  hand-cutters  out  of  revenge,  believing 
machines  would  mean  starvation  for  their  families.  File  making 
by  machine  did  not  become  an  industry  in  America  till  1840  and 
not  on  a  large  scale  till  1864  by  Chas.  H'essen  and  Amos  Pax- 
son,  Philadelphia. 

Owing  to  the  enormous  consumption  of  files  in  the  manufac- 
turing of  saws,  Henry  Disston  &  Sons  established  a  file  factory 
in  1866.  However,  this  was  not  new  for  Dr.  Mercer.  He  wanted 
something  more  substantial,  things  that  could  be  looked  at  and 
handled. 

Speculating  what  next  to  do.  it  dawned  on  my  mind  that 
about  thirty  years  ago,  a  man  traveled  around  calling  on  mechanics 
and  users  of  files,  gathering  worn-out  files  for  re-cutting.  In- 
quiry among  elderly  trades  people  developed  the  names  of 
Freese,  Blankenbiller,  ^^'erner  and  Sweitzer,  somewhere  beyond 
Reading. 

During  my  half  century  collecting  Indian  implements,  the  names 
of  Wyomissing  and  Angelica  creeks  had  become  familiar,  and  I 
thought  possibly  some  early  industrial  plants  might  be  located 
along  these  streams  among  the  Cumru  hills.  I  wrote  to  Dr.  Mer- 
cer asking  whether  he  would  pay  the  expenses  if  it  turned  out  a 
wild  goose  chase.  His  answer  was,  "Go  ahead.  I  have  been 
chasing  wild  geese  for  twenty-five  years." 

Therefore  early  on  the  morning  of  October  8,  1924,  with  my 
friend  William  H.  Siegfried,  we  were  speeding  in  his  car  to — 
somewhere  beyond  Reading.  It  was  a  beautiful  day,  and  driving 
along  the  creeks  through  narrow  passes,  the  blue  sky  above  and 
the  steep  hills  and  woods  clothed  in  their  autumnal  glory,  was  a 
delight,  and  why  should  not  good  fortune  smile  on  us  ?  The  name 
Freese  was  unknown;  Blankenbiller  was  reported  to  have  died 
years  ago ;  Sweitzer  turned  out  to  have  been  an  axe  maker,  so  our 
last  hope  was  Mr.  John  A.  Werner.  Stopping  at  the  village  store  in 
Angelica,  we  were  directed  to  his  place  just  a  few  hundred  feet 
ahead.  We  came  to  a  long  old  stone  building,  set  in  a  high  em- 
bankment, along  the  road.  Going  down  a  flight  of  large  stone 
steps  and  entering,  I  came  to  a  stop.    The  evidence  of  an  industry 


THE    LAST    OF    THE    FILE    MAKERS  753 

was  apparent.  The  strange  surroundings,  with  the  rushing  water 
through  the  tail  race  under  the  floor,  brought  on  a  weird  feeHng. 
At  the  farther  end  was  an  elderly  man,  tall,  well  built,  white  hair, 
slightly  stooped  shoulders.  I  rubbed  my  eyes.  Was  I  dreaming? 
Was  this  a  Rip  Van  Winkle  story?  After  introducing  Mr.  Sieg- 
fried and  myself  and  telling  him  we  had  come  for  information 
and  material  for  a  Historical  Society,  I  asked  Mr.  Werner  "How 
long  have  you  been  working  in  this  place?"  "thirty-eight  year." 
"Was  this  a  file  shop  prior  to  your  time?"  "Oh  yes,  fifty-six 
years."  "May  I  ask  your  age.  Mr.  Werner?  "Seventy  years  to- 
day." "Did  people  work  for  you  at  any  time?"  "Yes,  two  sons 
worked  with  me  till  they  were  called  to  war,  but  after  their  re- 
turn they  followed  other  trades,  and  I  cannot  continue  much 
longer,  due  to  rheumatism  and  age."  After  granting  to  give  the 
desired  information,  I  followed,  him  for  five  hours,  making  notes, 
while  he  attended  to  his  duties. 

There  was  a  large  blacksmith  hearth  with  a  stone  oven,  and  a 
deep  cast  iron  pot  imbedded  alongside;  the  old  anvil,  a  special 
shape  for  smithing  files ;  three  enormous  vats  filled  with  harden- 
ing solution ;  old  drying  stoves  ;  two  grindstones.  6  ft.  diameter, 
10  in.  face.  He  said  that  he  and  his  sons  used  to  wear  out  a 
car  load  of  grindstones  in  15  months.  Tbere  were  ample  work 
benches  and  three  file-cutting  anvils. 

The  processes  in  file  making  are:  1.  Cutting  bar  steel  to 
length.  2.  Forging  into  desired  shape — on  file  boss.  3.  Forging 
and  cutting  tang.  4.  Annealing  or  taking  temper  out  of  steel. 
This  is  done  in  the  stone  oven  by  placing  a  pile  of  files  on  iron 
cross  bars  above  a  hot  wood  fire  4  to  6  hours.  At  the  proper 
stage  the  oven  is  sealed  and  allowed  to  cool  24  to  48  hours,  ac- 
cording to  size  of  files.  5.  Smithing — taking  out  bends  and 
twists  caused  by  heat.  6.  Grinding — to  remove  scale  produced 
by  heat ;  also  to  provide  a  smooth  even  surface  for  cutting.  7. 
Dipping  in  lime  water  and  drying  quickly  in  drying  board.  8. 
Scraping  or  stripping.  A  special  file  is  used  to  remove  a  glaze 
formed  on  the  surface  by  grinding.  9.  Slight  oiling  to  facilitate 
movement  of  cutting  chisel  along  the  surface.  10.  Cutting.  This 
is  the  most  important  and  interesting  operation.  The  file-cutter 
must  do  accurate  and  eiTective  work  at  close  range.  Hence  re- 
sistance above  and  below  must  be  perfect.     To  meet  this  condi- 


754  THE   LAST   OF   THE   FILE    MAKERS 

tion,  the  anvil  is  made  from  solid  rock,  weighing  1100  pounds, 
which  is  sunk  in  the  ground  to  a  suitable  depth.  A  steel  anvil 
6  in.  by  6  in.  is  sunk  and  leaded  in  the  top  of  this  stone.  Chisels 
are  made  of  finest  hardened  steel  w^eighing  1^  to  3  ounces,  and 
the  adz-shaped  hammers  weigh  4  to  7  pounds.  Sheet  lead  is  laid 
on  top  of  the  anvil;  on  top  of  this  the  file-blank.  A  leather 
strap,  ends  fastened  to  one  side  of  anvil  and  passed  over  opposite 
ends  of  file,  and  down  to  the  floor,  where  the  operator's  foot  in 
the  loop  holds  the  file  firmly.  Sitting  and  bending  over  the 
anvil,  the  operator  begins  at  opposite  end,  and,  with  remarkable 
dexterity,  drops  the  hammer  at  an  average  speed  of  150  strokes 
a  minute.  The  chisel  is  moved  at  the  same  speed  absolutely  by 
sense  of  touch.  A  skilled  file  cutter  will  do  work  equal  to  the 
accuracy  of  a  machine  and  only  an  expert  can  tell  the  difference. 

11.  Straightening.    This  is  done  on  a  lead  base  with  a  lead  maul. 

12.  File  covered  with  a  paste  to  protect  teeth  during  hardening. 

13.  Hardening.  File  is  heated  by  immersion  in  molten  lead ; 
then  withdrawn  and  plunged  in  a  hardening  solution,  moved  back 
and  forth  till  partly  cooled.  14.  Final  straightening.  \Miile  the 
file  is  still  hot,  it  is  straightened  by  bending  between  two  iron 
bars ;  supplemented  by  holding  it  on  hard  wood  set  endwise  and 
struck  light  blows  with  wooden  mallet.  15.  Scrubbing — to  re- 
move all  paste,  then  dipped  in  lime  water  and  dried  quickly  to 
prevent  rusting.  16.  Tang  heated  for  softening  to  prevent  break- 
age. 17.  Final  oil  bath  to  keep  from  rusting.  It  was  fortunate 
that  I  could  purchase  almost  a  complete  outfit  for  your  museum. 
It  was  now  late  in  the  afternoon  when  we  left  the  place.  The 
sun  was  near  its  horizon,  and  the  end  of  the  day  reminded  me 
of  the  end  of  the  hand-made  file  industry,  the  last  of  the  file 
makers. 


The  Colonial  Carpenter. 

BY  DR.  HENRY  C.  MERCER,  DOYLESTOWX,  PA. 
(Doylestown  Meeting,  January  17,  1925.) 

AMONG  the  tools  of  ancient  type,  and  universal  interest, 
exhibited  in  the  Museum  of  the  Bucks  County  Historical 
Society,  those  pertaining  to  the  construction  of  the  house 
may  be  regarded  as  of  unusual  importance. 

In  attempting  however  to  show  and  explain  them  at  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Society  in  January  1925,  Dr.  Mercer  realized  that  any 
thorough  presentation  of  the  subject  would  not  only  exceed  the 
bounds  of  a  single  paper,  but  preclude  reasonable  illustration  in 
these  proceedings.  It  therefore  seemed  desirable,  after  classify- 
ing and  photographing  a  representative  series  of  the  specimens 
now  at  Doylestown,  or  elsewhere  obtainable,  to  utilize  an  oppor- 
tunity then  ofifered,  for  publishing  a  fully  illustrated  account  of 
them  in  a  sequence  of  articles  in  Old  Time  New  England,  the 
Bulletin  of  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of  New  England 
Antiquities,  published  at  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  House,  2  Lynde 
Street,  Boston,  Massachusetts.  These  descriptions  and  pictures 
have  appeared  in  the  Bulletins  for  April,  July  and  October,  1925, 
and  January  and  April,  1926,  and  when  finished,  in  three  or  four 
more  installments  should  finally  comprise  a  book  with  about  two 
hundred  illustrations  entitled : 

HOW    WAS   THE    HOUSE   BUILT 

A  HANDBOOK  OF  THE  TOOLS  OF  THE  LUMBERMAN,   CARPENTER 

AND    JOINER   OF    THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY. 

To  be  presented,  in  an  edition  of  about  five  hundred  copies,  to 
the  publication  fund  of  this  Society. 

Editor. 


History  of  the  Lucy  M.  Burd  Industrial  School. 

BY   MISS  LUCY   M.   BURD,  BEDMINSTER,   PA. 
(Lucy  Burd  School,  Bedininster  Township  Meeting,  October   17,   1925.) 

DR.  MERCER  requested  that  the  story  of  this  home  be  told 
here  today.    Twenty  busy  years  have  passed  since  I  began 
in  1904  and  every  day  filled  with  cares  and  duties.     All  to 
be  told  in  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  it  really  seems  more  difficult 
than  the  work  did. 

The  home  was  started  with  an  earnest  belief,  that  if  children 
could  be  taken  at  the  right  time,  and  placed  in  a  wholesome  en- 
vironment, they  would  grow  to  be  useful  men  and  women.  Was 
such  a  home  needed?  Had  the  state  already  supplied  institu- 
tions, homes,  and  various  places  sufftcient  to  meet  these  important 
conditions?  Opinions  were  obtained  from  various  sources.  A 
judge  in  one  of  the  neighboring  counties  thought  that  if  youth 
could  be  bridged  over  a  certain  period  of  their  lives,  it  would  help 
to  solve  the  great  problem.  Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  man 
who  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged  in  his  home  town.  A  boy  was 
eager  for  the  day  to  come  and  most  anxious  to  see  the  man  give 
his  life  for  the  crime  he  had  committed.  He  was  pleased  and 
excited  with  the  thought  that  he  might  see  this  horrible  sight,  but 
his  parents  feeling  that  it  was  not  good  for  him  planned  a  two- 
week  visit  to  his  grandparents.  If  by  any  possible  chance  this 
boy  should  have  witnessed  the  tragedy,  no  one  is  able  to  tell  what 
the  aflfect  might  have  been  upon  his  youthful  mind.  Would  it 
have  sickened  him,  or  would  it  have  increased  his  desire,  and 
helped  to  harden  his  feeling  for  such  scenes  ?  He  felt  tbat  his 
visit  had  been  on  the  safe  side.  This  able  judge  said,  "the  hard- 
est thing  he  had  to  decide  was  what  to  do  with  a  boy  that  stood 
before  him  waiting  for  his  sentence.  What  picture  or  scene  had 
come  into  his  life  to  create  wrong  doing?"  A  judge  of  another 
county  said,  "When  a  man  comes  before  me  who  has  committed 
a  crime,  the  law  tells  me  what  to  do  with  him,  but  his  hardest 
work  was  to  dispose  of  the  boys.  There  was  no  proper  place  to 
send  them,  and  conditions  were  such  that  they  could  not  return  to 
their  homes.    "If  it  were  mv  bov,"  he  said,  "I  would  rather  follow 


HISTORY  OF  THE   LUCY    M.   BURD   INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOL  757 

him  to  the  grave  than  to  a  reformatory,  'llierefore  what  must  I 
do  with  the  boy  of  my  fellow  man  ?"  When  attending  a  sick  child, 
a  doctor  was  asked  how  it  effected  him  when  he  knew  the  child 
would  not  get  well.  He  replied  that  it  was  looked  upon  as  a 
matter  of  business.  A  man  who  had  accumulated  great  wealth, 
was  consulted  as  to  the  advisability  of  such  a  home  as  this,  he 
replied,  "I  am  not  in  sympathy  with  the  work  and  would  like  to 
see  such  boys  thrown  into  the  river."  We  felt  differently,  and 
thought  that  life-savers  and  swimming- wings  should  be  given  to 
every  child.     Therefore  the  home  was  started. 

The  years  1903  and  1904  were  spent  in  Philadelphia,  a  portion 
of  that  time  was  spent  in  studing  the  "Incorrigable  Boy."  As  each 
individual  trouble  was  seen  and  better  understood,  we  felt  the 
country  surroundings  would  do  much  toward  helping  him  to  live 
in  a  bigger  world  and  lead  a  better  life.  Years  ago  Judge  Wat- 
son said :  "Never  take  the  rags  from  a  beggar  unless  you  can 
give  him  something  better."  We  find  scores  of  children,  clothed 
in  destructive  rags.  Wliat  has  the  country  to  offer  them?  A 
thousand  good  things  can  be  given  in  exchange.  'Tis  spring! 
The  frog  eggs,  the  toad  eggs,  worms  that  must  be  dug,  fish  that 
are  waiting  to  be  caught,  the  birds  and  their  nests,  the  butterflies, 
the  stars,  the  sunset,  the  cherries  that  we  must  climb  the  tree  to 
pick,  the  berries,  the  woods,  the  squirrels,  the  rabbits,  the  chip- 
munks, space  to  throw  a  stone,  swimming,  snow-balling,  the  snow- 
man, coasting,  three  meals,  a  bed-time  and  a  rising  time,  a  bath, 
clean  clothes,  the  bed-time  stories,  the  Sunday  school.  All  these 
rightly  used,  belong  to  the  boy,  and  will  be  helpful  suggestions 
rather  than  destructive  criticisms.  The  next  thing  was  to  find  a 
place  for  such  children  to  call  home.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W^illiam  H. 
Slotter  in  the  year  of  1904  gave  us  the  use  of  a  house  and 
enough  ground  for  a  garden  for  one  year.  Therefore  in  March, 
1904,  the  home  was  started,  with  fifty  dollars  invested  in  furni- 
ture and  one  boy,  who  had  not  eaten  at  a  table  or  slept  in  a  bed. 
for  two  years,  he  was  the  first  one  to  call  this  place  "home."  To 
be  thoughtful  of  each  other,  cooperating  whenever  we  could, 
were  the  principles  on  which  w^e  built  our  home.  At  first  our 
home  was  open  only  to  juvenile  court  boys.  It  only  took  a  few 
weeks  before  we  numbered  seventeen,  then  twenty,  which  was 
all  we  could  care  for.    The  first  year  was  a  hard  financial  struggle. 


758  HISTORY  OF  THE  LUCY    M.   KURD  INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOL 

but  the  children  were  happy.  All  that  we  had  to  depend  upon 
was  a  little  money  that  a  few  of  the  boys  could  pay,  with  a  small 
amount  of  my  own,  to  provide  food  and  clothing,  and  furnishing 
the  house.  We  owe  much  to  Mr.  Lewis  Keller,  who  allowed  us 
to  buy  without  money,  and  trusted  us  until  we  could  pay.  Mr. 
Charles  Eastburn  and  his  wife  were  the  first  to  send  a  donation 
of  money.  We  economized  in  every  possible  way.  One  little  boy, 
who  had  charge  of  the  milking,  said  that  we  were  using  more 
milk  that  he  could  afford  to  give  us,  and  suggested  that  we  do 
without  milk  on  our  oatmeal  for  one  week,  but  insisted  that  the 
cats  should  have  their  full  share.  Every  boy  agreed  to  this 
frugal  plan. 

After  leaving  here  this  boy  entered  the  Trade  School  in  Phila- 
delphia and  graduated  as  an  electrician.  His  brother  studied 
business  methods,  and  three  years  ago  they  went  into  the  electrical 
business  on  their  own  account.  They  are  now  wholesale  con- 
tractors in  Philadelphia,  and  expect  to  do  $300,000  worth  of 
business  this  year.  The  brother  was  a  great  traveler,  and  never 
stayed  very  long  in  one  place.  We  speak  of  his  resources  with 
some  pride.  When  he  was  sixteen  he  had  visited  a  great  many 
states,  and  then  thought  he  would  like  to  make  a  trip  abroad. 
He  had  an  opportunity  to  sail  on  a  Norwegian  vessel.  When 
they  landed  in  Germany,  the  vessel  hired  two  of  their  own 
countrymen  and  refused  to  take  the  boy  any  farther.  Having 
neither  money  nor  friends,  he  was  resourceful  enough  to  know 
that  we  had  an  American  consuls  in  Germany,  and  inquired  until 
he  located  one.  He  told  his  story,  and  our  consul  sent  him 
home  with  some  good  advice.  This  boy  was  the  only  member' of 
our  family  that  ever  crossed  the  water  to  confer  with  a  diplomat. 

At  that  time  we  did  not  have  the  means  to  provide  for  a  teacher, 
and  we  found  it  most  difficult  to  do  the  work  and  keep  the  chil- 
dren interested.  Occasionally  runaways  would  result,  but  they 
were  always  glad  to  get  back,  and  would  describe  their  trips  with 
the  greatest  interest.  Five  little  boys  started  to  Philadelphia, 
without  permission,  to  see  a  parade.  Mr.  Slotter  started  after 
them,  but  failed  to  find  them.  Later  in  the  day  we  received  a 
telephone  message  that  the  boys  were  at  Chalfont,  tired,  hungry 
and  ready  to  come  home.  After  they  got  here,  one  little  fellow 
said,  "Mr.  Slotter,  it  was  too  bad  vou  did  not  look  on  the  other 


HISTORY  OF  THE  LUCV    M.   BURD   INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOL  759 

side  of  that  big  tree.  I  was  standing  there  as  quiet  as  could  be !" 
They  had  taken  a  loaf  of  bread  that  had  been  left  by  the  baker 
at  a  gate,  and  Mr.  Slotter  said,  "George,  who  took  the  bread?" 
"I  don't  know,  Mr.  Slotter,  I  walked  right  along  and  looked 
straight  ahead."  Mr.  Slotter  then  said,  "George,  did  you  have 
some  of  the  bread?"    He  replied,  "Oh,  yes,  they  gave  me  a  piece !" 

All  our  boys  discussed  religion,  politics,  and  all  grades  of  so- 
ciety. Those  boys  who  were  sent  by  Judge  Davis  of  Philadelphia, 
felt  that  they  were  quite  superior  to  any  other  boys  who  had  been 
sent  by  other  judges.  A  little  boy.  of  six  years,  whom  Judge  Davis 
had  sat  upon  his  knee,  and  to  whom  he  talked  very  kindly,  felt 
that  he  belonged  to  the  judge.  After  Judge  Davis'  death,  he  came 
to  me  with  clasped  hands  and  said.  "Miss  Burd,  who  will  be  my 
judge  now?" 

In  politics  they  agreed  with  Mr.  Slotter,  but  one  boy  felt  that 
Thomas  Jefferson  knew  more  than  any  other  man  in  history,  so 
he  felt  it  his  duty  to  be  a  Democrat.  Many  of  the  children  knew 
no  creed  by  name,  and  when  a  boy  was  asked.  "What  was  a 
rabbi?"  he  said:  "It  was  a  man  who  killed  chickens."  A  few 
days  later  we  studied  about  John  the  Baptist  living  on  locusts 
and  wild  honey.  We  had  spinach  for  dinner  one  day,  and  one 
boy  refused  to  eat  it  because  he  did  not  like  it.  He  was  reminded 
of  John  the  Baptist  and  his  meagre  diet,  and  said,  "Well,  I'm 
not  John  the  Baptist;  I'm  John  the  Presbyterian."  He  is  now 
a  member  of  the  Presbyterian  church. 

Our  school  was  incorporated  in  1909.  At  that  time  a  few  girls 
were  admitted,  which  helped  to  make  our  home  a  more  normal 
one,  and  added  to  the  happiness  and  contentment  of  the  other 
children.  A  library  was  started  very  early  in  the  first  year,  and 
the  children  became  interested  in  books.  We  tried  to  emphasize 
our  school-wook  by  having  them  in  school  a  portion  of  the  day, 
and  a  study  hour  in  the  evening. 

One  of  the  girls  entered  West  Chester  Normal  School  and 
graduated  in  three  years.  Others  entered  high  schools  in  Phila- 
delphia and  in  Easton,  Westtown  Boarding  School,  and  one  grad- 
uated from  Wisconsin  University.  She  is  now  working  and  sav- 
ing towards  a  degree.  Two  of  the  girls  graduated  from  Banks 
Business  College,  and  one  of  them  became  secreteary  to  the 
president  of  the  college.     Another  girl  obtained  a  position  with  a 


760  HISTORY  OF  THE  LUCY    M.   DURD   INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOL 

professional  man,  and  remained  with  him  until  her  marriage.  Her 
work  was  so  appreciated  that  both  the  man  and  his  wife  have 
kept  up  their  interest  in  the  young  couple,  and  helped  them  to 
purchase  a  country  home,  spending  the  majority  of  their  week- 
ends with  them,  advising  and  giving  his  professional  services  free 
of  charge.  Another,  who  graduated  from  the  Mount  x\iry  School 
for  the  Deaf,  has  been  taken  into  Hoskins  store,  and  is  giving 
very  satisfactory  services  as  a  messenger  between  departments. 
She  is  the  first  girl  of  this  type  to  work  for  this  firm  and  they 
are  very  well  pleased  with  her  interest  and  attention. 

In  1910,  Miss  Leah  F.  Slotter,  a  lady  of  high  principles  and  of 
strong  character,  came  to  spend  her  vacation  with  us,  and  liked 
the  work  so  well  she  stayed  with  us  ten  years.  Her  influence  for 
good  was  felt  among  us  all.  She  was  a  wonderful  help,  and  in- 
troduced the  study  of  music  into  our  home.  We  had  planned  a 
recital,  the  night  proved  to  be  very  stormy,  but  it  kept  none  of  us 
away.  I  shall  never  forget  the  interest  the  girls  took  in  planning 
and  preparing  for  that  entertainment,  and  how  they  dressed 
themselves  in  their  best,  for  the  occasion. 

The  children's  birthdays  were  always  remembered,  and  special 
suppers  were  given.  Our  Christmases  were  especially  happy,  and 
there  were  gifts  for  all.  We  are  indebted  to  the  Saturday  Club 
of  Wayne,  which,  for  many  years,  sent  gifts  to  every  child. 
The  Presbyterian  School  of  Langhorne  always  sent  a  turkey. 

For  some  of  the  comforts  we  enjoy  today,  we  can  thank  Miss 
Eleanor  Folke.  She  started  a  fund  for  the  plumbing  by  emptying 
her  pocketbook  while  on  a  visit  here.  Mrs.  LeBoutillier,  of 
Wayne,  has  for  several  years  given  us  a  donation  of  money, 
which  has  made  it  possible  for  us  never  to  turn  a  child  away  be- 
cause he  could  not  pay. 

We  try  to  put  a  little  touch  of  home  into  their  lives  whenever 
possible,  and  life  is  made  up  of  little  things.  Whenever  they  went 
fishing  and  brought  home  fish,  no  matter  how  small,  they  would 
be  cooked  if  they  cleaned  them.  One  day  I  found  earthworms 
crawling  over  the  piano.  I  said,  "William,  what  does  this  mean?" 
He  replied,  "Darwin  says  worms  have  hearing.  If  you  put 
them  on  the  piano  and  strike  several  keys  they  will  move,  and 
I  was  just  trying  to  see  if  it  would  turn  out  to  be  so." 

A  little  boy.  watching  a  bird  build  its  nest,  then  the  arrival  of 


HISTORY   OF  THE  LUCY    M.   BURD   INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOL  761 

the  eggs  and  four  little  featherless  birds,  came  to  me  with  the 
following  original  thought : 

I  wonder  how  the  little  birds, 

Stay  happ3^  crowded  in  their  tin\-  nest, 

And  how  they  know  their  mother. 

And  how  to  stretch  their  necks  for  food. 

And  why  they  hold  their  bills  toward  heaven — 

Is  that  the  way  they  say  their  blessing? 

In  1918  we  met  our  first  great  loss.  The  barn  and  all  the 
crops  were  destroyed  by  fire.  Mr.  Slotter  was  in  the  horse  entry 
at  the  time,  and  there  were  men  on  the  barn  floor  getting  out 
the  reaper.  The  fire  was  discovered  by  a  girl  who  was  sweeping 
the  porch.  She  at  first  thought  it  was  dust  being  raised  by  a  boy 
sweeping  the  garage.  She  called  to  the  boy  when  she  realized  it 
was  smoke  and  not  dust,  and  he  ran  into  the  barn  to  warn  Mr. 
Slotter.  Mr.  Slotter  turned  around,  and  began  shooing  him 
out,  saying,  "Don't  come  around  here  with  any  of  your  tricks." 
The  fire  made  rapid  headway  and  Mr.  Slotter  soon  realized  its 
seriousness.  He  rushed  forward  to  release  the  horses.  He  was 
also  able  to  drive  out  a  few  pigs,  but  the  most  of  them  and  a 
valuable  bull  were  burned  to  death.  Fortunately  the  cows  were 
in  the  meadow.  During  the  height  of  the  blaze,  the  telephone 
rang.  It  was  a  brother  of  one  of  the  girls.  He  had  just  reached 
Camp  Crane,  Allentown,  from  Cainp  Greenleaf,  Georgia.  Notic- 
ing the  tremor  in  his  sister's  voice,  he  inquired  the  cause.  When 
told  that  the  barn  was  burning  he  dropped  the  receiver  with  an 
exclamation,  and  ran  out  to  ask  leave  of  absence  from  an  officer, 
although  he  knew  an  order  had  been  issued  that  no  leave  of  ab- 
sences would  be  granted.  The  circumstances  being  unusual,  he 
was  given  a  thirty-six  hour  leave,  and  spent  his  furlough  in  help- 
ing to  clear  away  the  debris.  "Helpfulness"  was  the  keynote  of 
the  neighborhood,  and  everyone  who  could  do  so  lent  a  hand, 
helping  to  save  a  few  small  buildings.  A  few  boys  sat  on  the 
house  roof,  busily  sweeping  burning  embers  that  blew  over  from 
the  barn.  The  boys  felt  the  loss  very  much,  as  the  barn  had  been 
a  real  gymnasium  to  them,  they  had  taken  many  a  flipper  ofif  its 
beams  into  the  mows  below.  They  would  be  exercising  when 
Mr.  Slotter  thought  they  were  working,  and  when  they  saw  him 
approaching  the  one  on  guard  would  shout  a  warning  cry,  call- 


762  :medicixal  herbs  and  plants 

ing  "Peaches."  For  sometime  Mr.  Slotter  thought  peaches  was 
a  game  they  played,  it  was  a  game,  and  he  was  "it."  Later  he 
learned  it  was  a  signal  that  he  was  coming,  and  it  was  time  for 
them  to  get  back  to  work. 

Mr.  Slotter  owes  his  youthfulness  largely  to  those  tricks  and 
games  with  the  boys,  and  the  boys  are  indebted  to  him  for  prin- 
ciples that  will  serve  as  sign-posts  along  the  path  of  life. 

The  number  of  children  having  grown  beyond  the  capacity  of 
the  house,  it  was  decided  to  put  up  a  school  building  rather  than 
rebuild  the  barn.  Therefore  the  farm  below,  with  good  buildings, 
was  purchased  for  less  money  than  it  would  have  cost  to  put 
up  a  barn. 

A  greater  loss  occurred  in  1921,  when  fire  destroyed  the  barn 
on  the  newly  purchased  fann,  and  all  the  cattle  and  other  stock 
with  it.  The  origin  of  either  has  never  been  known.  We  owe 
the  Dublin  Fire  Company  our  thanks  and  gratitude  for  the  work 
they  did  in  both  instances.  The  insurance  companies  refused  to 
pay  the  full  insurance,  which  made  our  loss  still  greater. 

In  1924  our  straw-shed  burned  down.  We  know  the  origin 
of  that  fire.  A  five-vear-old  boy  found  a  match,  and  he  and  an- 
other little  boy  went  out  to  the  shed  and  struck  it  to  see  how 
long  they  could  hold  it  in  their  hands,  not  knowing  that  hay  would 
burn.  As  soon  as  it  began  to  burn  their  fingers,  they  dropped 
the  match  into  the  hay.  They  rushed  to  the  house  to  tell  us 
that  the  shed  was  on  fire.  I  want  to  say  that  we  got  every 
penny  of  the  insurance  of  that  loss.  Mr.  Carlile  Hobensack  had 
it  in  his  charge.  I  am  not  here  to  advertise  his  business,  but  I 
can  commend  him  for  doing  the  right  thing. 

Many  of  our  boys  and  girls,  by  this  time,  were  quite  grown 
up,  and  they  formed  an  organization  known  as  "The  Blueburd 
Club,"  the  idea  of  which  was  to  assist  the  home  financially,  in 
a  small  way.  They  edited  a  small  paper,  to  which  many  people 
subscribed,  and  in  that  way  they  were  able  to  install  an  electrical 
plant.  The  Allcnto'ivn  Morning  Call  published  the  paper  free 
of  charge.  One  of  the  issues  of  the  paper  contained  an  extract 
of  an  article,  that  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  had  had  published  in 
several  newspapers,  telling  about  our  school  and  its  work.  Mrs. 
Wilcox  was  very  much  interested  in  our  school,  and  had  planned 
to  visit  us.     She  had  her  publishers  send  us  several  of  her  books.. 


MEDICINAL    HERBS    AND    PLANTS  763 

I  know  you  would  like  to  know  more  about  the  success  of  this 
home.  There  are  two  ways  of  measuring  success — the  one  mak- 
ing a  life;  the  other,  making  a  living.  Today,  with  shrewd 
business  ideas,  one  can  make  a  living,  and  acculumate  great 
wealth.  To  make  a  life,  requires  finer  workmanship.  When 
the  sun  goes  down,  we  have  no  bookkeeper  able  to  balance  the 
profit  and  loss  sheet.  If  there  is  a  deficit,  it  cannot  be  made  up 
by  saving  a  little  here  and  a  little  there,  it  is  lost  forever.  Only 
the  other  day  I  heard  a  man  say,  "If  I  had  my  time  to  live  over 
again,  how  diiTerently  I  would  do !"  Showing  us  that  a  deficit 
when  the  day  closes  means  a  deficit  when  life  ends. 

It  ain't  so  far  from  right  to  wrong,  the  trail  ain't  hard 'to  lose, 
There's  times   I'd   give  most  anything  to  know   which   one   to   choose, 
There  ain't  no  signboards  on  the  road  to  keep  you  on  the  track; 
Wrong's  sometimes  white  as  driven  snow,  and  right  looks  awful  black. 
I  don't  set  up  to  be  no  judge  of  right  and  wrong  in  men, 
I've  lost  the  trail  sometimes  myself,  I  may  get  lost  again, 
And  when  I  see  some  boy  who  looks  as  tho  he'd  gone  astray, 
I  want  to  shove  my  hand  in  his  and  help  him  find  the  way. 


Herbs  and  Plants  Used  for  Medicinal  Purposes  by  Colonial 
Settlers. 

BY  MISS  JULIA  B.  ABBOTT,  BRISTOL,  PA. 
(Lucy  Burd  School,  Bedminster  Township  Meeting,  October   17,   1925.) 

THERE  was  an  Indian  trail  in  colonial  times  that  led  from 
below  Philadelphia  and  South  New  Jersey  to  Easton  and 
above.  It  followed  the  course  of  the  Delaware  river  more 
or  less  closely.  On  the  New  Jersey  side  it  ran  at  the  foot  of  a 
bluff  varying  in  height  from  thirty  to  eighty  feet  above  the  river. 
On  this  bluff  just  outside  of  Trenton,  in  a  brick  house  built  in 
1797  by  Samuel  Abbott  for  his  bride,  Lucy  Laurie,  a  cousin  of 
the  Annie  of  the  famous  song,  I  found  an  old  Quakeress  who 
had  been  a  practical  nurse  and  knew  the  uses  of  the  herbs  of  her 
mother's  garden  and  also  of  the  fields  and  woods. 

She  led  me  into  a  room  on  the  south  side  of  the  house  from 
which  viewpoint  the  river  and  also  Penn's  Manor  could  be  seen 
at  a  distance.     The  furniture  in  the  room,  with  its  Queen  Anna 


764  MEDICINAL    HERBS    AND    PLANTS 

and  Chippendale  chairs,  hair  cloth  covered  sofa,  tilt-top  table, 
and  even  the  hair  wreath  in  a  deep  frame,  all  gave  the  room  a 
decidedly  colonial  atmosphere,  which  was  enhanced  by  the  little 
air-tight  stove,  in  which  a  fire  was  burning  brightly.  The  years 
between  then  and  now  had  vanished,  it  was  1797  once  more. 
After  the  usual  inquiries  as  to  the  welfare  of  mutual  friends  and 
relatives,  Martha  said : 

"Now  just  let  me  close  my  eyes,  and  I  will  see  mother's  garden  just 
as  plain  as  can  be.  There  are  hoarhound,  for  coughs  and  colds.  I  re- 
member sister  Sarah  made  me  some  syrup  once,  and  forgot  to  put  the 
tar  in  a  bag.  Thee  sees  she  should  take  hoarhound  and  molasses,  with 
tar  in  a  bag,  and  then  boil  it  all  together:  but  this  time  she  forgot  about 
the  bag,  and  the  tar  got  in  my  teeth.  Then  there  were  always  babies 
to  make  catnip  or  catmint  tea  for,  when  they  had  colic.  Next  to  the 
catnip  was  a  clump  of  comfrey,  the  Greek  name  of  which  means  'to 
grow  together,'  probably  derived  from  its  healing  properties;  its  roots 
were  sticky  and  mashed  with  fat  pork  it  was  used  for  bruises;  it  was 
also  a  good  poultice  for  sore  throat  and  inflamation  of  the  intestines. 
Sage,  of  course,  was  always  put  in  sausage  and  goose  stuffing,  it  was 
thought  to  aid  in  digestion  of  the  fat  and  stimulate  the  stomach.  Next 
to  the  sage  was  'spinkard,'  (by  which  I  judge  she  meant  spikenard), 
the  roots  of  which  are  aromatic,  and  the  extract  was  used  in  perfume 
and  burial  spices.  I  must  not  forget  camomile  tea,  that  was  a  stimu- 
lant, and  its  leaves  and  flowers  were  both  used  for  fomentations  and 
poultices,  the  essential  oil  is  light  blue  when  first  extracted.  The  chil- 
dren used  to  say  'Campfile  tea,  it  cured  me,'  but  I  just  don't  recollect 
what  it  cured  us  of;  I  guess  it  was  good  to  purify  the  blood,  for  in 
those  days,  'all  the  ills  that  flesh  Avas  heir  to,'  were  thought  to  be  caused 
by  impure  blood.  (Of  course  the  campfiile  was  cinquefoil.)  Dogwood 
was  good  for  chills  and  liver  complaints,  but  I  don't  remember  ever 
taking  it." 

Here  the  old  lady  paused  and  again  closed  her  eyes  for  a  few 
moments,  and  after  coming  out  of  her  dream,  she  told  me  the 
following  story : 

"Of  course,  I  don't  remember  it.  but  Ann  Satterthwait  used  to  tell 
me,  that  when  I  was  four  years  old  I  went  up  garret  and  got  two 
onions,  which  I  roasted  in  the  ashes  of  the  hearth,  (we  did  not  have 
stoves  in  those  days),  that  every  once  in  a  while  I  would  look  at  them 
and  turn  them  over.  When  I  thought  they  were  done  I  ate  them  for 
my  cold,  and  I  guess  they  cured  it  too."  (Even  I  remember  using  a 
poultice  of  roasted  onion  for  ear-ache,  though  I  suppose  it  was  the 
heat,  rather  than  the  onion  that  was  the  curative  principal.)  "Now  let 
me  see  what  more  was  in  the  garden.  There  was  marjoram,  thyme, 
and  basil,  but  they  were  used  only  in  cooking.     Back  in  the  corner  was 


MEDICINAL    HERBS    AND    PLANTS  765 

fox-glove,  digitalis,  good  for  the  heart  and  still  used,  and  next  was 
balsam-apple;  we  always  had  a  bottle  of  that  on  the  kitchen  mantle 
for  cuts  and  sores.  We  poured  whiskey  on  the  apples  and  let  it  stand 
for  si  few  weeks,  when  it  was  ready  for  use.  Then  there  was  a  bed  of 
chives  for  the  turkeys,  it  was  chopped  fine  and  mixed  with  the  young 
turkej''s  food.  There  was  rue  an  ancient  emblem  of  sorrow,  it  was 
cultivated  for  its  aromatic  and  medicinal  properties;  it  was  called 
'herb  of  grace,'  and  was  used  as  holy  water,  to  sprinkle  against  witch- 
craft, but  of  course  we  were  Friends,  and  that  is  just  hear  say.  In  the 
fields  we  gathered  dandelions,  good  for  chills  and  fever,  and  for  your 
blood  too;  and  so  too  is  boneset,  exaporium  and  tansy.  Ellis  always 
gave  tansy  tea  to  horses  for  colic,  it  is  a  bitter  tonic  and  its  young 
leaves  are  good  for  flavoring  puddings.  Pennyroyal  was  also  used  as 
a  flavoring.  I  wish  I  could  get  some  now,  but  I  guess  it  has  all  died 
out.  (I  told  her  that  some  was  growing  on  an  adjoining  farm.)  Wild 
carrot  tea  (she  continued),  is  good  for  kidney  trouble  and  j-arrow  is 
used  as  an  astringent,  and  good  for  asthma,  as  is  also  jimson  weed. 
Stramonium  was  used  for  poltices  to  allay  inflamation;  and  don't  for- 
get the  mayapple  (mandrake);  some  say  it  is  good  for  the  liver.  (Any- 
one living  in  lower  Bucks  county,  surely  knows,  from  the  signs  painted 
on  the  sides  of  many  barns,  the  suggested  benefits  to  be  derived  by 
using  Schenk's  mandrake  pills.)  Wintergreen  is  good  to  flavor  candy, 
but  it  was  also  used  for  rheumatism,  (and  still  is  in  Baum  Analgeseque. 
In  my  own  home  an  Hungarian  maid  was  delighted  to  find  some  may- 
apple, from  which  she  made  a  syrup  just  as  they  did  in  her  old  home.) 
Peppermint  was  good  for  babies  colic,  and  spearmint  was  used  only 
for  mint  sauce,  to  serve  on  roast  lamb."  After  a  few  moments  of  silent 
thought,  she  suddenly  opened  her  eyes  and  said:  "Why  Jule  what  about 
bam  (balm),  we  used  to  have  that  but  I  have  forgotten  what  we  used 
it  for.  Balsam  was  used  for  consumption  and  to  make  people  sleep,  we 
used  to  call  it  'life-everlasting,'  or  'live-forever.'  Then  there  was  smart 
weed  and  heart's  ease,  both  used  for  poultices  to  allay  inflamation.  The 
yellow  dock  and  burdock  were  used  as  astringents,  and  mother  used  to 
use  sassafras  and  spicewood  used  to  purify  the  blood  and  for  making 
harvest  beer.  Lavender  was  used  to  keep  the  moths  away,  and  to  make 
the  linen  smell  sweet,  as  it  still  is." 

Being  very  tired,  by  this  time,  my  hostess  began  to  nod,  and 
stepping  suddenly  back  into  1925.  I  made  my  adieu  with  regret. 


The  Proctor  Family  of  Upper  Bucks  County. 

BY  PROF.  WILLIAM   H.  SLOTTER,  DOYLESTOWN^  PA.^ 
(Lucy  Burd  School,  Bedminster  Township  Meeting,  October  17,   1925.) 

FREQUENTLY  things  unrelated  to  the  work  in  hand  at- 
tract our  attention  and  enlist  our  interest.  Twenty-five  years 
ago  I  chanced  to  dine  at  the  home  of  John  Proctor  at 
Blooming  Glen  in  Hilltown  township,  who  in  the  course  of 
conversation,  while  at  the  dinner  table,  gave  me  a  sketch  of  the 
history  of  the  Proctors  in  that  part  of  Bucks  county.  He  said 
that  they  were  all  descendants  from  the  same  ancestor  who 
was  an  officer  in  the  Continental  army  during  the  Revolutionary 
War.  He  was  probably  born  in  Ireland,  but  at  the  outset  of 
the  war  he  and  his  wife  lived  in  Philadelphia.  I  have  no 
record  at  hand  to  show  when  he  entered  the  army,  but  in  1777 
he  was  a  colonel,  and  may  have  fought  at  the  battles  of  Brandy- 
wine,  Chadd's  Ford  and  other  places  in  the  vicinity  of  Phila- 
delphia. In  the  fall  of  that  year,  when  Washington  and  his  army 
went  to  winter  quarters  at  Valley  Forge,  Colonel  Proctor  was 
with  a  division  of  the  army  that  spent  the  winter  at  Easton. 
Colonel  Proctor's  Christian  name  was  not  given  to  me.  At  the 
time  of  the  battle  of  Germantown,  his  wife  and  child  lived  at 
Germantown.  Late  in  the  fall  she  with  her  child,  a  boy  about 
three  years  old,  started  to  walk  to  Easton,  a  distance  of  about 
fifty-five  miles,  to  spend  the  winter  nearer  her  husband.  John 
Proctor,  my  informant,  is  a  grandson  of  Colonel  Proctor  and  this 
brave  woman. 

He  did  not  know  what  route  they  took  from  Germantown,  nor 
how  long  they  were  on  the  way,  or  what  hardships  they  suffered 
prior  to  reaching  a  farm  house,  three  miles  northwest  of  Pipers- 
ville,  which  is  the  farm  now  occupied  by  the  Lucy  M.  Burd 
Industrial  School,  in  Bedminster  township,  where  we  are  as- 
sembled today.  He  said  they  arrived  at  this  farm  home  late 
one  cold  snowy  evening  where  the  mother  asked  for  something 
to  eat,  and  lodging  for  herself  and  her  baby  boy.     They  were 

1  Mr.  Blotter  was  superintendent  of  public  instruction  for  Bucks  county 
from  June,  1887,  to  June.  1902,  and  was  therefore  filling  that  office  when  this 
history  was  related  to  him. 


TIIK   I'ROCTOR  FAMILY   OF  UPPER  BUCKS  COUXTV  767 

taken  in,  warmed  and  fed  and  given  a  comfortable  bed  to  sleep 
in.  It  continued  to  snow  during  the  greater  part  of  the  night,  but 
by  morning  the  storm  had  passed.  The  day  was  bright  and 
cold,  but  the  snow  was  too  deep  for  the  woman  to  continue  her 
journey  on  foot.  She  was,  however,  anxious  to  get  to  Easton, 
and  her  hospitable  host  therefore  offered  to  take  her,  presumably 
on  horse  back.  She  gladly  accepted  his  kind  offer.  For  some 
unknown  reason,  it  was  decided  that  the  little  boy  should  remain 
with  the  farmer's  family,  until  the  mother  could  return  and  get 
him.  The  details  having  been  arranged,  Mrs.  Proctor,  no  doubt 
with  a  heart  filled  with  sorrow  at  parting  with  her  boy,  and  with 
gratitude  as  well,  now  bade  good  bye  to  her  hostess,  who  too  had 
a  son  about  three  years  old.  Then  turning  to  her  baby  boy,  and 
without  apparently  at  least,  any  premonition  that  she  might  never 
see  her  child  again  bade  him  good  bye.  Think  of  the  confidence 
these  two  women  had  in  each  other.  Mrs.  Proctor  and  the  farmer 
then  set  out  for  Easton,  which  they  reached  sometime  during  the 
day,  where  Mrs.  Proctor  joined  her  husband,  a  happy  woman  who 
had  won  the  prize  of  her  adventure.  The  farmer  returned  to  his 
home,  bearing  the  latest  messages  of  motherly  love  to  the  little 
boy  in  his  new  home  with  the  farmer  and  his  wife. 

The  most  coveted  joys  are  often  the  most  fleeting.  This  seems 
to  have  been  true  in  Mrs.  Proctor's  case.  Not  many  days  after 
her  arrival  at  Easton,  she  took  sick,  and  after  a  brief  illness,  died. 
It  appears  that  her  death  must  have  been  unexpected,  for  no  part- 
ing message  came  to  her  child,  whom  she  had  entrusted  to 
strangers  at  the  farm  house  in  Bedminster  township. 

Children,  as  a  rule,  quickly  adapt  themselves  to  their  environ- 
ments. This  little  fellow  found  a  playmate,  of  about  his  own  age, 
in  his  new  home.  A  child  of  three  years  of  age,  soon  forgets  an 
absent  parent  and  clings  to  the  people  in  a  home  that  supply  his 
wants.  So  this  little  child  could  not  have  appreciated  his  loss  in 
the  death  of  his  mother,  even  if  word  had  come  to  him.  This 
temporary  home  became  his  abiding  place  till  he  grew'  to  man- 
hood, married  and  founded  a  home  for  himself  and  his  family. 

If  Colonel  Proctor  visited  the  boy  at  any  time  between  the 
time  of  his  wife's  arrival  at  Easton  in  1777  and  the  close  of  the 
war,  my  informant  did  not  say.  He  did  however  say  that  when 
the  boy  was  about  ten  years  of  age,  the  father,  accompanied  by 


768  THE  TROCTOR  FAMILY  OF  UPPER   I'.UCKS  COUXTV 

an  army  friend,  came  to  claim  the  child  as  his  own.  The  son, 
naturally  did  not  know  his  father.  When  the  father  explained 
that  he  came  to  take  him  to  his  own  home,  the  son  began  to  cry 
and  refused  to  go.  The  more  the  father  tried  to  get  his  confi- 
dence, the  more  excited  the  child  became,  bursting  out  in  spasms 
of  crying  and  pathetically  appealing  to  the  people,  who  had  been 
the  only  guardians  he  knew,  not  to  allow  this  stranger  to 
take  him  away.  These  earnest  appeals  won  for  himself  the 
sympathies  of  the  father's  army  friend,  who  now  said  to  the 
father,  "Why  worry  your  child?  These  people  seem  to  be  good 
to  him.  He  likes  them  and  is  happy  here.  Why  not  let  him  re- 
main?" The  father  replied,  'T  want  to  send  him  to  school  and 
educate  him."  "Well,"  said  the  friend,  "wait  till  the  boy  is  fifteen 
or  sixteen  years  old  and  then  your  intentions  will  no  doubt  appeal 
to  your  son."  The  father,  therefore,  reluctantly  yielded  to  the 
suggestions  of  his  friend  and  permitted  the  son  to  remain  till  the 
time  suggested  by  his  friend.  The  father,  however,  never  re- 
turned; whether  death  claimed  him  before  the  son  reached  the 
age  named  by  the  friend  is  not  known.  John  Proctor,  who  re- 
lated this  story  to  me,  was  a  farmer  in  his  younger  years. 
Joseph,  a  brother,  was  a  blacksmith,  and  Samuel,  another  brother, 
was  an  hotelkeeper  at  Dublin.  If  there  were  more  children  in 
this  family,  I  failed  to  learn  their  names. 

NOTE  BY   EDITOR. 

In  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  454  to 
470,  there  is  a  full  history  of  the  military  services  of  General 
Thomas  Proctor,  who  is  probably  the  Colonel  Proctor  referred  to 
by  Professor  Slotter.  Thomas  was  born  in  Ireland  in  1739,  the 
eldest  son  of  Francis  Proctor,  who  emigrated  with  his  family  to 
America  sometime  before  the  revolution.  On  December  31,  1766, 
Thomas,  who  was  a  carpenter  by  trade,  married  Mary  Fox. 
(See  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Second  Series,  Vol.  11,  p.  201.) 

On  October  27,  1775,  he  was  commissioned  as  captain  of  artil- 
lery and  recruited  a  company.  He  served  gallantly  throughout 
the  war,  and  his  services  were  so  much  appreciated  that  he  was 
given  positions  of  trust  in  the  army.  On  February  20,  1777,  he 
was  advanced  to  the  rank  of  colonel.  He  took  part  in  the  battles 
of  Trenton,  Brandywine,  Chadd's  Ford  and  Germantown.  In 
the  winter  of  1777-78,  he  lay  with  his  regiment  at  Valley  Forge. 


THE  PROCTOR  FA.MILV  OF  UPPER  BUCKS  COUNTY 


769 


On  May  8,  1779,  he  was  commissioned  as  "Colonel  of  Artillery 
in  the  Army  of  the  United  States,"  and  detailed  to  do  service 
with  General  Sullivan  in  his  campaign  against  the  Six  Nations  of 
Indians  to  punish  them  for  their  atrocities  in  the  Wyoming  Valley. 
He  joined  General  Sullivan  at  Easton  on  May  20,  1779.  On 
December  25,  1782,  he  was  commissioned  as  Major  of  Artillery. 
After  the  close  of  the  war.  viz,  on  April  12,  1793,  Governor  Mif- 
flin commissioned  him  as  Brigadier  General  of  the  Mililtia  of  the 
City  of  Philadelphia.  He  served  as  sheriflf  of  Philadelphia  from 
1783  to  1785. 

Mary  was  evidently  his  first  wife  and  died  young,  and  the 
Mrs.  Proctor  mentioned  by  Prof.  Slotter  may  have  been  his  sec- 
ond wife,  and  if  so  it  is  evident  that  he  was  married  three  times, 
as  we  are  informed  by  Poulson's  Daily  Advertiser,  of  March  27, 
1804,  that  "Sarah  Ann,  spouse  of  General  Thomas  Proctor,  died 
March  23,  1804."  The  same  newspaper,  issue  of  March  27,  1806, 
notes  the  death  of  General  Proctor  on  March  16,  1806. 

He  passed  away  on  Sunday,  March  16,  1806,  at  his  home  on 
Arch  street,  between  Fourth  and  Fifth,  Philadelphia.  During 
the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  was  harassed  by  financial  troubles. 

Prof.  Slotter's  informant  (John  Proctor,  a  grandson)  says 
Colonel  Proctor  was  stationed  at  Easton  during  the  winter  of 
1777-78.  This  must  be  a  mistake,  if  in  fact  Colonel  Thomas  is 
the  Proctor  referred  to,  as  his  movements  during  his  military 
campaign  are  a  matter  of  public  history.  The  statement  related 
by  Prof.  Slotter,  is  after  all  a  family  tradition,  and  the  circum- 
stances of  Mrs.  Proctor's  journey  might  just  as  well  have  re- 
fered  to  the  winter  of  1779-80.  In  1779,  General  Proctor  was 
40  years  of  age.  The  son,  left  at  the  farm  house,  according  to 
Prof.  Slotter's  story  was  then  but  three  years  old,  and  was  doubt- 
less a  child  of  his  second  marriage.